| See it Now: Oscars on DVD |
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This year's Academy Award-nominated films were daring, diverse, and... not many people saw them (of the Best Picture nominees, only "The Departed" made over $100 million at U.S. box offices). However, all is not lost if you missed out on them in the theaters: many of this year's Oscar films are already available on DVD or will be by the time you read this. So here's a short list of the films and what their accompanying DVDs have to offer, in our reviewer Kevin Filipski's preference, included with our previous coverage on the featured movies. The Departed (Warner Home Video)
Jesus Camp (Magnolia)
The Illusionist (Fox) Blood Diamond(Warner Home Video)
The Prestige |
Everybody's saying that this is Martin Scorsese's best shot at the Best Director Oscar: it may well be [and indeed it was —ed.], but it's such a fantastically entertaining crime drama that it doesn't really matter if he finally wins. A remake of the Hong Kong cop thriller "Infernal Affairs," this version is transplanted to Boston to explore the turf wars between organized crime and the police. 
Directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady uncover the Christian Fundamentalist movement in this eye-opening Best Documentary nominee that explores—with an unjaundiced eye–how these believers treat their children and live their lives in George W. Bush's America. It's scary to see a woman screaming to her young charges that Harry Potter (a fictional character!) should die, and seeing that supremely arrogant preacher Tom Haggard—prior to his disgrace in a homosexual liaison scandal—act cute before the cameras is enough to make any viewer's head explode. But Ewing and Grady don't demonize these people, instead allowing them to expose their prejudicial ideas to public scrutiny. 
The glistening cinematography of Dick Pope was the lone Oscar nomination for "The Illusionist," and his camerawork is the best thing about this diverting mystery-romance about a magician wooing a princess as no mere mortals can. Edward Norton gives a restrained performance in the title role; his paramour is played by Jessica Biel, who might not be a great actress but whose beauty is enough; and Paul Giamatti credibly plays his nemesis. Prague and the surrounding Czech countryside stands in most adequately for Vienna; and Pope's dazzling photography loses nothing in the DVD transfer. Brief Biel interview, equally brief "making-of," audio commentary from writer-director Neil Berger. 
As usual with Ed Zwick movies ("Glory," "The Last Samurai"), the message overwhelms the medium: this plea for Westerners to stop buying diamonds where people are being killed to mine them is certainly a noble cause, yet not enough to make "Blood Diamond" anything more than a noble failure. Fast-paced, even exciting at times, Zwick's movie would be more effective without the weight of its seriousness. Both Leonardo DiCaprio and Djimon Hounsou make the most of their cardboard characters–although I don't know if their Oscar nominations are deserved; DiCaprio was far more persuasive in "The Departed"–while poor Jennifer Connolly is saddled with a beyond-the-pale part (the slutty journalist). 
Another magician story set in the early 20th century, "The Prestige" is, like "The Illusionist," distinguished by its luscious physical production (Oscar nominations for its Art Direction and Wally Pfister's cinematography). However, the story–typically for a Christopher Nolan movie–revels in twists and turns that do so once too often; the result is a maddeningly frustrating drama that may appeal to those who thought that "Memento" was deep.
The murder case that's hypnotized Hollywood for a half-century becomes a mere backdrop for a remote and unappealing romantic triangle, directed by Brian de Palma in the sledgehammer mode of "Scarface" and "The Untouchables." He at least had the good sense to hire Vilmos Zsigmond, who fantastic cinematography garnered the film's lone nomination. With Aaron Eckhart and Josh Hartnett as L.A. detectives and Scarlett Johansson as the woman who comes between them, "The Black Dahlia" only hits home when Mia Kirshner appears as the struggling actress who becomes the title legend after her death. Hilary Swank also scores in a strange role as a trampy rich girl, but nothing adds up satisfactorily. 
Meryl Streep continues to amaze, this time grabbing her upteenth Oscar nomination as the dragon lady who runs the fashion magazine "Runway" in an otherwise routine adaptation of the flimsy "insider" novel; Anne Hathaway makes a likeable heroine, and Stanley Tucci steals a few scenes as Streep's right-hand fag, but the movie is flashy fun rather than penetrating satire. 
One of the biggest Sundance Film Festival success stories—Fox picked up a movie that became a sleeper hit, making $60 million and snaring Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor (Alan Arkin [who went on to win]) and Best Supporting Actress (Abigail Breslin)—"Little Miss Sunshine" is nevertheless an only fitfully funny look at an ordinary dysfunctional family.
The first part of Clint Eastwood's diptych about Iwo Jima looks at the turning point in the WWII Pacific Theater from the American side through a disjointed series of stories. Each of the men celebrated for planting the American flag after the victory—who became true American icons thanks to the famous photograph—are glimpsed before, during and after that long and bloody battle. Eastwood does well showing the grit, grime and gore of battle (there's no glory here), but is less in his element showing the men being turned into reluctant celebrities. None of the actors registers, unfortunately, rendering their characters remote and emotionless. Still, the corny ending leaves a lump in your throat. 
"Babel" (not "Babble") may be pretentious, empty nonsense, but it's A Serious Film, and hence fooled the Academy into seven nominations, including Best Picture and Director. As usual, Alejandro González Iñárritu moves among several interrelated stories, each interesting in themselves but less so in relation to the whole. The hackneyed notion that miscommunication leads to tragedy isn't the problem; it's that these plot strands are so unbelievable, especially after they are given flimsy dramatic closure.
As if to prove that she can make a film even shallower and less interesting than "Lost in Translation," Sofia Coppola unleashes her biopic about the French queen who lost her head during the French Revolution. "Marie Antoinette" tells us–now, get ready for this–that the poor Hungarian teenager who became Louis XV's wife was simply a misunderstood girl who just wanted to have fun! Her parties, affairs, food, costume and wig changes galore are set to a sad excuse for a new-wave soundtrack, i.e., The Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees. Of course, because she wants to have it both ways, Coppola also misuses actual baroque music (including the same Vivaldi piece used to greater effect as a wake-up call in Bob Fosse's "All That Jazz").| < Prev | Next > |
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