| New Films on DVD |
|
|
| Written by Kevin Filipski | |
|
Page 4 of 4  Starting Out in the Evening (LionsGate)Frank Langella persuasively plays a reclusive novelist whose outlook on life is jump-started by the appearance of a grad student writing her thesis on his work in this low-key character study. Director Andrew Wagner and writer Fred Parnes are on solid ground as long as they stick to the relationship between the writer and his unmarried daughter (a warm, glowing Lili Taylor). But when the student–competently played by Lauren Ambrose–takes over his life, the filmmakers can’t steer away from standard-issue melodramatic territory. Still, Langella and Taylor make this watchable, if not entirely credible. EXTRAS: Director commentary.  True Story of Charlie Wilson (History Channel)This documentary is a sort of companion piece to Mike Nichols’ Charlie Wilson’s War, bringing together the real Charlie Wilson and several other players in this bizarre but true story of the congressman’s helping to fund the Afghan rebels against the Soviets in the 1980s. The interviews are interesting, but the re-enactments–which are de rigeur in these sorts of docs nowadays–are laughably literal, making Wilson’s exploits look like something out of the E! True Hollywood Story. This is the rare History Channel program with a slapdash feel, seemingly thrown together at the last minute.  Untraceable (Warners)Poor Diane Lane: After A Walk on the Moon put her back on the map as one of our very best actresses and Unfaithful made her a star, she’s been unable to find a decent script and is forced to act in rote thrillers like this one, where she plays an FBI agent specializing in internet crimes who tracks down a fiendish killer with a website that displays his dastardly deeds as they happen. This uncredited remake of The Silence of the Lambs at least gives its lead actress a juicy role, but Lane -- as good as she is -- won’t win an Oscar for this, a la Jodie Foster. EXTRAS: Filmmaker commentary; four making-of featurettes.  When the Moors Ruled in Europe (Acorn Media)Camera-ready historian Bettany Hughes’s fascinating account of the centuries before the Renaissance when the Moors–who had taken over much of Spain–were the undisputed rulers of the known world, forging ahead in the worlds of science, literature, art, and architecture. In two 50-minute programs, Hughes recounts the Moorish world’s wares, including the impossibly dazzling alhambras (palaces) in Granada and Seville. Even the Catholics, after taking over these lands, built copycat churches that had the appearances of mosques. Hughes’ exuberance is contagious, as she makes a potentially dry subject endlessly exciting.  Youth Without Youth (Sony)Combining Francis Ford Coppola’s worst visual and dramatic excesses, Youth Without Youth simultaneously parades extravagant imagery and tells a nonsensical story, and is so appallingly bad that it’s amazing that an accomplished veteran filmmaker was at the helm. The early sequences of his protagonist’s accident and recuperation beg for black comedy, but a humorless Coppola plays everything straight, which only accentuates the ridiculousness. Coppola’s biggest failure in adapting an obviously unfilmable story is how he visualizes his protagonist’s conscience warning him of upcoming pitfalls: the director has filmed these sequences with a miscast Tim Roth speaking to himself, usually in front of a mirror or another creaky visual device. EXTRAS: Coppola commentary; three behind-the-scenes featurettes. |
