DVD Corner

“Black Book” DVD, Blu-ray: From Paul Verhoeven, who always will be best known for directing “Basic Instinct” and “Showgirls,” poor thing, comes “Black Book,” a tense film set at the end of World War II. We’re in the Netherlands, it’s 1944 and the Jewish cabaret singer Rachel Stein (the excellent Carice van Houten) is trying to keep ahead of the Third Reich, which has gunned down her family in a bloody slaughter from which she barely escapes. Now filled less with mourning than with rage and revenge, she joins the Resistance, dyes her hair blond and becomes Ellis de Vries. Her job? Get close to Ludwig Muntze (Sebastian Koch), the attractive head of the Dutch Gestapo, and survive the harrowing journey that ensues. Since that journey is laced with sex, unexpected love, intrigue, guts and guns – sometimes colliding all at once – none of it proves easy, but just look at how coolly tough Rachel can be. Some might say inhumanly so, but they’d be overlooking the inhuman times. As for the movie, it seethes like a soap opera and the momentum it builds clashes to a crescendo. Rated R. Grade: B+

“The Day After Tomorrow” Blu-ray: If ever there was a movie designed to land at the top of Al Gore’s Netflix list, this is it. Just out on Blu-ray disc, this global-warming thriller finds Mother Nature huffing and puffing and blowing the world down. Tokyo is slammed with hailstones, New York City is overcome by a tidal wave and Los Angeles is riddled with tornadoes. Dorothy never had it this bad and she was saddled with a gingham dress, a yapping dog and a wicked witch. The film’s first 20 minutes are a blast, literally, with director Roland Emmerich having a grand time playing Mother Nature. Released in 2004, the film was ahead of its time, taking the position that thanks to the atmosphere being littered with greenhouse gases, major climate shifts would alter Earth. In this case, that means plunging it into a new ice age, with the movie focusing on a handful of characters trying to survive the ensuing devastation until the worst is over – you know, the day after tomorrow. Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, Emmy Rossum and Sela Ward star. All are fine. Better is that while the movie is trash, it isn’t a cheat. It’s fast-paced and entertaining, particularly in its first hour, a film with good window dressing and an ecological heart that make up for the so-so script grinding away with stock B-movie characters. Several scenes pack a punch, such as when wolves, newly escaped from a zoo, go on the prowl and then on the attack. Or the scene that follows, when a deadly blast of sub-arctic air leeches into the city, freezing everything in sight. Or, best yet, when Americans are shown fleeing illegally across the border into Mexico in an effort to beat the looming deep freeze. It’s the film’s most outrageous, wittiest twist, with our administration promising to forgive all Latin American debt should that country allow us in. Genius. Rated PG-13. Grade: B

“Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer” DVD, Blu-ray: Nothing here thrills or captivates the way the best superhero movies do. The film is trite and self-indulgent, with the bum script generating no mystery, nuance or compelling sense of dread. The lack of the latter is especially curious since the plot involves the end of the world, with Earth rapidly being destroyed by the Silver Surfer, a gleaming extraterrestrial with the voice of Laurence Fishburne who surfs the globe looking like stripped down Mercury. Naturally, it’s up to the Fantastic Four (Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis, Chris Evans) to shut him down, which proves difficult to do for a host of reasons, none of which is worth exploring here. With Julian McMahon also reprising his role as Dr. Victor Von Doom, this sequel itself is doomed. It never once feels as if a trace of pleasure went into its production. Rated PG. Grade: D+

“Gothika” HD DVD, Blu-ray: Halle Berry, looking increasingly frazzled and gaunt. In this supernatural drama combined with women’s prison film, she goes nuts, with her overheated performance as a wrongfully imprisoned psychologist fitting in perfectly with the movie’s incoherent direction and dialogue. About the dialogue. It’s so bad, it’s the one element of this cliche-ridden film that gives you goose bumps – and sometimes the snorts and giggles. Indeed, when Berry’s character shrieks at one point that “I’m not deluded – I’m possessed,” you lean back in your seat and you think that yes, she must be. The actress did, after all, choose to make this movie after winning the Academy Award for “Monster’s Ball.” Rated R. Grade: D.