DVD Corner

“Boston Legal: Season Three”: A marvelous show – a spinoff 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 cigars 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 now running. Grade: A

“Evening” DVD, HD DVD: Lights out. Touts the sort of cast that’s so revered it tends to generate a groundswell of excitement. The downside of that, of course, is the high expectations that go along with it. Featured here are Vanessa Redgrave and her real-life daughter Natasha Richardson, Meryl Streep and her real-life daughter Mamie Gummer, Toni Collette, Claire Danes, Eileen Atkins and Glenn Close. Hardly a sorry bunch. Add to this mix Hugh Dancy and Patrick Wilson, and you have an intoxicating brew. Trouble is, the movie itself is a long crawl toward death, literally, and while the acting can be very good, this story about Ann Lord (Redgrave), a 65-year-old woman dying of cancer who dips back into memory to recall her life and her lost love, struggles to achieve the elegance of the 1998 book on which it’s based, written by North Haven’s Susan Minot. Rated PG-13. Grade: C+

“Family Guy, Vol. 5”: This isn’t the funniest or the most provocative season to date – and only half the full season is presented here – though the envelope is pushed on enough issues to satisfy fans. Highlights include the episodes “Whistle While Your Wife Works,” in which the dangers of handling fireworks prove not-so-problematic for Peter; “Mother Tucker” (not going there); and “Stewie Loves Lois,” the episode in which Peter has his prostate exam and cries rape. So, yes, it’s hardly for everybody, but for those who get it, it’s subversive fun, nonetheless. Grade: B-

“Gods and Generals” HD DVD and Blu-ray: With its reams of endless speeches, forced emotion, whitewashing of history and interminable length, Ron Maxwell’s insufferable Civil War epic is a bloated bust, failing on almost every level to live up to its 1993 predecessor, “Gettysburg,” a better movie not nearly as self-conscious or self-important. This nearly four-hour prequel is the second in a planned trilogy. God help us if the next film is as dull as this. Instead of focusing on one major battle, as he did in “Gettysburg,” Maxwell focuses on three – the Battle of Manassas (Bull Run), the Battle of Fredericksburg and the Battle of Chancellorsville – while telling the stories of the three most influential men behind those battles: Confederate Gens. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson (Stephen Lang) and Robert E. Lee (Robert Duvall) for the South and Maine’s own Lt. Col. Joshua Chamberlain (Jeff Daniels) of the 20th Maine Regiment for the North. And yet with his purple script in hand, Maxwell sandbags his characters with such florid sentiment, you’d swear Hallmark got screwed out of a writing credit. And maybe it did, because nobody – nobody – talks as archly as these people. Faring better are the battle scenes. Each is given its due with grand re-enactments comprising 7,500 real-life Civil War buffs. But for the most part, Maxwell sabotages a good deal of the combat scenes by not getting behind them. His camera is literally a stick in the mud, panning and shooting the action while only occasionally plunging into the heart of it. Rated PG-13. Grade: D-

“Knocked Up” DVD, HD DVD: The title makes the lot of it sound purely lowbrow, which it is in parts, but not in whole – this excellent comedy from Judd Apatow is smart, warm and good-naturedly raunchy. The film follows the ramifications of a one-night stand between Katherine Heigl’s Alison Scott and Seth Rogen’s Ben Stone. With Alison now pregnant, what ensues is a movie that follows the awkward courtship that emerges from their unlikely relationship. It’s in this way that “Knocked Up” recalls the genesis of its title – it’s something of a throwback, with abortion never really considered. Ben is an immature wreck, for sure, but he means well and he wants to do right by Alison, who recognizes in Ben (at least until her hormones kick in) someone who might be able to go the distance. Many of the laughs come from the superb supporting cast. There’s Alison’s calculating sister, Debbie (Leslie Mann, Apatow’s wife), and Debbie’s husband, Pete (Paul Rudd), who have been married for years – and it shows. Also on board are Ben’s stoner friends, a scattershot bunch as endearing as they are emotionally stunted, with Apatow seamlessly weaving their idiosyncrasies into the plot. Rated R. Grade: A

“Next”: Presumably, Nicolas Cage, Julianne Moore and Jessica Biel read the screenplay for “Next,” then decided this was indeed the right choice to move their careers forward. Forward into what is the question (a brick wall, a pile of manure, a black hole of no return?), but it’s tough to work up the steam to figure out an answer. This film is stupid served with a side of stupid. Cage is Cris Johnson, a third-rate Las Vegas magician whose ability to see two minutes into the future attracts the attention of grim FBI agent Callie Ferris (Moore), a woman determined to enlist his help to keep a group of Russians from blowing up Los Angeles with a stolen nuclear bomb. Why? Did one of the Russians have a script denied? We never know the reason, but the movie wobbles forward anyway, with Biel showing up as Johnson’s love interest who is kidnapped by the Russians and thus endangered in ways that only Johnson can solve. Detonates with one of the worst, most incomplete endings in recent movie history. Rated PG-13. Grade: D

“Prison Break: Season Two”: The conspiracy deepens, the pace quickens, the series finds its legs and man, does it run. This is literally a fresh break from the season that came before it, with Michael (Wentworth Miller) and his brother Linc (Dominic Purcell) breaking free from the high-security prison that contained them and fleeing with Sucre (Amaury Nolasco), C-Note (Rockmond Dunbar) and John (Peter Stormare), among others. It can be a kinetic ride, but one that shrewdly pauses long enough to deepen the characters in ways that they weren’t in the first season. In some ways, the show reminds you of the old Saturday matinee serials – at every turn, there’s a cliffhanger. The good news about this show? You don’t want to throw yourself off one while watching it. Grade: B+

“The Unit: Season Two”: This strange, offbeat hybrid from David Mamet melds elements of “The Shield” and “24” with flashes of “Desperate Housewives.” For the most part, it works. Dennis Haysbert is Jonas Blane, head of the Army’s Delta Force, a top-secret Special Forces unit that enlists in all sorts of bullet-biting bravery. Scott Foley is Bob Brown, who takes on terrorists while his wife, Kim (Audrey Marie Anderson), takes on a few of her own – the wives of the other Unit members. The dialogue can be very good – it has energy. So do the story lines, which are swift. The problem? Sometimes, those qualities come at the cost of developing the characters, which must be fleshed out in the third season if this promising series is to flourish. Grade: B-

Visit www.weekinrewind.com, the archive of Bangor Daily News film critic Christopher Smith’s reviews, which appear Mondays, Fridays and weekends in Lifestyle, as well as on bangordailynews.com. He may be reached at Christopher@weekinrewind.com.