New to DVD: 'W.', 'Soul Men,' 'Back to the Future'

There are a lot of new DVDs this week. There's nothing surprising about that in general, but this particular Tuesday offers a whole lot of movies that were either ignored for reasons I can't quite figure out, for reasons that are plain to see, and then one of the better, most entertaining trilogies ever. Incidentally, our list is just an overview of some of the bigger releases. For a complete rundown, including re-released DVDs and TV series box sets you can pick up today, check out Video ETA. W. I always felt that Oliver Stone's W. would be a slight commercial misfire. Based on his own crowd and those interested to see what Josh Brolin could do as George W. Bush, I knew there was some potential, but it also came out at a time when nobody gave a damn about Bush. We were just kind of sick of the last eight years altogether. Certainly, W. has its merits (Brolin is terrific), but its big failing is that it doesn't seem too committed to the point it's making. In over his head? Surely. But Stone doesn't throw enough haymakers to make the study very effective. (Here's our review)
Soul Men Soul Men just deserved a little better. Bernie Mac's passing notwithstanding, it's a funny raunch comedy, or at least, it's funny enough. But when you factor in how good Bernie is here, in his final performance, for the audience that has supported him for so long to suddenly not show up is a bit, well, cold, don't you think? The combo of Bernie and Sam Jackson, the hardest working man in show business, works most of the time, and I couldn't help but think how much more damage they could have done if Mac had stayed with us longer. And let's not overlook the passing of the legendary Isaac Hayes, whose song "Soul Man" is the the inspiration for the title and possibly the genesis of the movie. (Our Soul Men review)
Nights in Rodanthe I won't even pretend that this movie worked on any level. It's a Nicholas Sparks movie, so you know one crucial plot point going in. Yeah, he does it again. The screenplay is so incomplete and the characters portrayed by Richard Gere and Diane Lane so thin and pathetic, that if this passes for romance for some people, then those people deserve lifetimes of misery. Nights in Rodanthe is one of those films that leaves you wondering if you'd make the same movie if you were in the actor's shoes. And then you say, "If I was Richard Gere, I'd know my good scripts from bad scripts now. Do I really need $3 - $5 million that badly?" (Our review of Nights in Rodanthe...and it's not pretty)
Miracle at St. Anna I actually lost a fair amount of respect for Spike Lee with Miracle at St. Anna. The first reason why is because he's a better director than this. He's proven it. Nearly every time he's made a movie. For all the movies people say are too long, this is one of the greatest offenders in the last ten years or so. It's nearly three hours long, and pointlessly so. The real issue, though, is Spike's loud insistence last year that Clint Eastwood botched the representation of black soldiers in the Pacific Theatre during the war in his Flags of Our Fathers. To set the record straight, Spike covers a squadron of black soldiers in Europe during the war, embarking on a mission that never happened. If it's such a big deal, make the real story. (Our review)
Blindness If you can believe it, my biggest disappointment on DVD this week isn't St. Anna, but the justly avoided Blindness. This is just a terrible, unintelligent, uninspired tornado of nothing. But, wow, there's a lot of talent here. Director Fernando Meirelles (City of God) leading Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Gael-Garcia Bernal, and Danny Glover. So what went wrong? The book is supposed to be a modern miracle. And before you blast me for not reading it, that's not my job. The movie's job is to interpret the book in a way that is engaging, thought-provoking, and original. It's what failed here, not me. I just watch what they show me. (Our Blindness review)
Frozen River I'm looking forward to checking out Frozen River, which sports a Best Actress nominee in Melissa Leo. Though she received great notices towards the end of the year, Sony Pictures Classics didn't do quite enough promotion after the fact on the film, and I can only speak for critics in Phoenix, all of whom were a little surprised to not get a screener of this film for consideration. You hear nothing but great things about Leo's work, and I think it would have to be way up there to get a nomination because she doesn't have enough name recognition to stumble into an Academy Awards discussion, and not as many voters saw her performance as did Winslet's or Streep's.
Back to the Future I suppose if you don't have the box set, you can rush right out and get all three films in this trilogy, brand new on DVD. Well, kind of. From the looks of them, they're the exact same thing that's been released before with whiz-bang new packaging. It's not Blu-Ray, and the original extras are contained on second discs for each film, but it's nothing we haven't seen before. But isn't it good to know this is out there? I mean, they'll get to Blu-Ray - and they'll probably make that available as a box set, too, instead of standalone films - but this one's already selling well on Amazon.
Sukiyaki Western Django I don't, as a general rule, like movies that are all over the road. Films that borrow and borrow and borrow and stack all the influences so high that you can barely see the film you're watching underneath it all bore me to tears. You're not showing me anything you can do, just other (and probably better) movies that came before you. However, Sukiyaki Western Django, which cribs extensively from Italian and American westerns, is a tremendous amount of fun. I can't help thinking how much better it would've been if the Japanese cast had been allowed to speak in their native language as opposed to very labored English, but still, director Takashi Miike has put something genuinely entertaining in each scene, and even while he's tipping his wide-brimmed hat to the past, he's pointing toward the future. (Our Sukiyaki Western review)
My Name is Bruce Bruce Campbell directs Bruce Campbell, who's playing Bruce Campbell as both a version of himself and a version of his movie persona. Attending a fan convention, Campbell is recruited to help fight an evil spirit resurrected by local teenagers, despite really only being a movie actor, who also happens to think the whole thing's a prank. Campbell has dutifully taken this film around the country and is now promoting it overseas. It never got a sniff from studios for distribution, so here's hope Bruce can make some coin on the DVD release.