| New Films on DVD |
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| Written by Kevin Filipski | |
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Page 2 of 4  The Great Debaters (Genius/Weinstein)For his second film as director, Denzel Washington tackles a subject combining a referendum on race with heartwarming true-life melodrama: at all-black Wiley College, Texas in 1938, a winning debate team is molded by mentor, Professor Mel Tolson. Against all odds, the students make history by defeating the venerable Harvard debate team in a showdown for the ages. Thanks to his invaluable cinematographer Phillipe Rousselot and shrewd editor Hughes Winborne, Washington has made an inspiring drama that, while not winning awards for originality, succeeds at sending its tolerant message into the world. The debaters are enacted skillfully by Nate Parker, Jurnee Smolett and Denzel Whitaker. EXTRAS: Deleted scenes; music videos; making-of featurettes; interviews.  How the Earth Was Made (History Channel)This 90-minute overview of over 4.5 billion years of our planet’s development is another highly informative History Channel film, featuring state-of-the-art computer-generated effects showing the earth during several eons of recorded history. Narrated with appropriate stentorian tones by Edward Herrmann, How the Earth Was Made even projects billions of years into the future to when the earth is no more. It’s amazing to watch, maybe even for those uninterested in science (whose numbers seem to be growing lately). EXTRAS: Equally interesting 90-minute feature, Inside a Volcano.  Meeting Resistance (First Run)Molly Bingham and Steve Connors didn’t set out to make a film about those Iraqis who decided to defend their country’s honor by striking out at the U.S.-led coalition forces as part of an underground resistance movement. But once in Iraq after the war began, Bingham and Connors’ interviews led them to believe that the insurgency–as several insurgents say during the course of the film–will be finished once the U.S. troops leave. Don’t dismiss Meeting Resistance as mere propaganda, for it’s far deeper–with no histrionics, the directors capture a truer portrait of Iraq than anything on TV news or in newspapers. EXTRAS: Directors’ commentary.  National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets (Buena Vista)The history buff in me enjoyed watching the dopey National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets, especially the sequences engaging in sheer speculation–a la The Da Vinci Code–that tie real people and events to its cockeyed plotting. The Mount Rushmore finale, of course, can’t outdo Hitchcock’s thrilling North by Northwest finale, and Nicolas Cage is certainly no Cary Grant. Still, Cage is more animated and likable here than in the first installment, and a boatload of slumming actors (Jon Voigt, Helen Mirren, Diane Kruger, Ed Harris, Harvey Keitel) helps whenever interest–or Jon Turteltaub’s direction–flags. EXTRAS: Turteltaub/Voight commentary; deleted scenes; bloopers and outtakes; behind-the-scenes featurettes.  Operation: Homecoming (Genius)This Learning Channel series contains five heartrending episodes of soldiers returning from Iraq and how their families are preparing for and reacting to their overdue return. Pro-war zealots might call this anti-American propaganda because it doesn’t skimp on showing families torn apart when soldiers are called away to war. But Operation Homecoming sets out to present these touching, humane stories with no speechifying or grandstanding–and it largely succeeds. |