• print
• email

New DVD releases

The following movies were released to DVD on Nov. 17

Published: November 20. 2009 4:00AM PST

“Brüno” — The latest mock-documentary satire from comic provocateur Sacha Baron Cohen was mostly a misfire. Taken from Cohen’s TV program “Da Ali G Show,” Brüno is a gay, Austrian host of a fashion show. As the film opens, he makes a mess of a runway and is “schwartzlisted” from the industry. He attempts a comeback by going to Hollywood and, eventually, the Middle East and American South. Whether it’s a painful episode involving Brüno trying to trap presidential candidate Ron Paul into making a sex tape or trying to broker Arab-Israeli peace or his encounters with gay “converters” in Alabama, the skits here don’t add up to anything substantive. Cohen’s targets are too easy and his raunchy, puerile stunts are just that, nothing more. (R)

“Humpday” — If prizes were handed out for a low-budget movie with the year’s highest concept, one would have to be reserved for Lynn Shelton’s film, in which two straight, former college buddies decide to make a gay porn film together. Ben and Andrew (Mark Duplass and Joshua Leonard), along with Ben’s wife, Anna (Alycia Delmore), work up a loose-limbed, improvisatory energy, but the film radiates with the sheen of a film that has been thought out within an inch of its witty and insightful life. Rating: Three and a half stars. (R)

“Is Anybody There?” — As Edward in this sweet if not terribly innovative film, Bill Milner plays a boy who lives in a rambling retirement home in England where death is an inevitable occurrence. Enter Michael Caine as Clarence, a former magician who is getting a little dotty. Clarence sets out to divert Edward’s attention from the morbid side of life, and the two eventually forge a brief friendship. Caine is magnificent, and the film is worth a look for his contribution alone. But Milner is a promising actor, too, and the pairing of young and old is believable and occasionally very moving. Rating: Two and a half stars. (PG-13)

“The Limits of Control” — Jim Jarmusch’s latest meditation on male soloism has no emotion, no compelling characters, no unity of effect and, consequently, no good reason to be seen. It does have great actors slumming as vague philosophical notions, though. Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, John Hurt and Gael Garcia Bernal pass in front of Jarmusch’s camera and say weird things. A lone man in a sharkskin suit (Isaach De Bankole) encounters each of them while on an undefined criminal mission in Spain. He must rely on these strange people to lead him from clue to clue. Jarmusch has taken the idea of a caper, drained it of plot, action and suspense, and set it against an absurdist background, where every symbol, person and incident should convey meaning but doesn’t. Rating: Half star. (PG-13)

“My Sister’s Keeper” — Anna (Abigail Breslin) is an 11-year-old conceived by her parents (Cameron Diaz and Jason Patric) to harvest umbilical-cord blood, bone marrow and various organs for their daughter Kate (Sofia Vassilieva), who has leukemia. Anna has hired an attorney (Alec Baldwin), demanding to be “medically emancipated” from her parents: She doesn’t want to donate the kidney she was bred to give up. Then the focus turns to Kate’s story, when she meets a fellow patient and falls in love. It’s an undeniably affecting sequence, but it represents one of several tonal shifts that make the film an ever-widening shaggy dog story. Rating: Three and a half stars. (PG-13)

“Star Trek” — “Star Trek” is an origin story that, unlike such recent downers featuring the Incredible Hulk and Wolverine, pays affectionate respect to its source material but never falls into the trap of slavish worship. Zachary Quinto plays Spock with surprising pathos, and a clever setup pits him against James T. Kirk (Chris Pine), giving the film its fraternal rivalry. Director J.J. Abrams proves to be an able steward of this narrative and these characters. Rating: Two and a half stars. (PG-13)

COMING UP: Movies scheduled for national release Nov. 24 include “Angels & Demons,” “Four Christmases,” “Funny People,” “Imagine That” and “Shorts.” Check with local video stores for availability.

— The Washington Post (ratings by Roger Ebert, The Chicago Sun-Times)

• print
• email