Action | All The President's Men | Dick Cavett Show | Domino | Emmanuel's Gift | Grey's Anatomy | The Journey | Just Like Heaven | La Bete Humaine | Midnight Cowboy | MirrorMask | Nine Lives | North Country | The Pretender | Proof | Rent | Significant Others | The Thing About My Folks | Wallace & Gromit | Zathura

	Wallace And Gromit In the five years that the Motion Picture Academy has deigned to recognize the animated feature as a prize-worthy category of its own – and to cover its ass when such terrific entertainments as Shrek and The Incredibles fail to make the cut for Best Picture – only once have more than three films been nominated for an Oscar. This year's list is similarly puny, although each of the three finalists is worthy of any honor bestowed on it. What this says about such also-rans as Madagascar, Valiant, Robots and Chicken Little remains open to question, although it would have been difficult for any of those films to beat Howl's Moving Castle, The Corpse Bride or, new to DVD this week, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. I wouldn't be surprised to learn, however, that the academy was so in need of spare chairs in the snug Kodak Theater, it had limited the nominating committee to three picks. Why reward talent, after all, when it's so much more cost-effective to appease an advertiser, ABC-TV executive or an editor for the Los Angeles Times, THR or Variety? Never mind. The Curse of the Were-Rabbit certainly deserves to among the finalists, and, like previous Aardmore Animations stop-action products, take home a statuette. The story is simplicity itself, in that nutty scientist Wallace, alongside his loyal canine companion, Gromit, is hired to humanely rid local gardens of rabbits feasting on this year's crop of blue-ribbon vegetables. In doing so, they create an even greater menace, in the form of a hungry horde of captive hares and a sinister were-rabbit. It is only the second feature film from Aardman, which also produced Chicken Run and a trio of Oscar-winning animated shorts, but it looks as if Nick Park & Co. knows how to get the attention of academy voters. This hilarious shaggy-rabbit story is accompanied by several informative and entertaining making-of featurettes and bonus scenes. -- Gary Dretzka
	North Country DVD Review: Niki Caro’s deeply felt workplace drama, North Country, which focuses on sexual harassment in the taconite mines of northern Minnesota, will remind anyone who’s watched a movie in the last 40 years of such kindred titles as Norma Rae, Erin Brockovich, The China Syndrome and Silkwood … minus all the laughs. Earnest to fault, the chilly tome describes the heroic real-life struggle, waged by a handful of women miners in the mid-‘80s, for respect from their male counterparts and the right to work without being groped and insulted. Charlize Theron, who disappeared into the role of a serial murderer and prostitute in Monster, is only a tad less convincing here as a gorgeous (there’s no getting around it) single mother whose only crime is trying to afford a better life for her kids. Theron’s good, but her character is rarely required to be anything more than justifiably pissed off by the boorish behavior of the locals. As is typical of the genre, the enemies of progress are drawn with a very thick brush stroke, and their shades of gray are almost impossible to discern. Only two of the dozens of males portrayed in the mine, courtroom and union-hall scenes are shown to have even an ounce of human decency. Mostly, they’re lumped together as working-class rabble and sexist gargoyles, with no empathy whatsoever for their co-workers. In fact, many of the women involved in the litigation were the wives, daughters or mothers of male miners, who, we’re led to believe, were unanimous in their hatred. This runs contrary to evidence presented in a background featurette, in which several of the actual complainants offered praise for the many men who supported their case. All that said, Caro’s depiction of life in this economically fatigued corner of America – which is dreary only in winter – is nothing short of superb. She even managed to secure rights to the music of one of Hibbing’s favorite sons, Bob Dylan. The bonus material is essential to a full appreciation of North Country. -- Gary Dretzka The Hot Button Review: The movie is a courtroom drama that doesn't arrive in the courtroom, except for a few flashforwards, until its last 20 minutes, by which point we have spent so much time with the issue, drilled into our heads, that it has less momentousness than waiting for a verdict on Law & Order.
	Rent It took 10 years for Rent to make the leap from Broadway to Hollywood, but only a month to disappear from the megaplexes. Another Broadway blockbuster, The Producers, was similarly ignored by the mainstream masses, but that can be explained by the ready availability of the source material on video and television. Despite the success of such New York-set television shows as NYPD Blue, Friends and the various Law & Order vehicles, the Manhattan of Jonathan Larson's rock 'n' roll updating of Puccini’s "La Bohème" probably wasn’t something desired as heart-warming holiday fare. Tuberculosis, after all, has long been considered far more romantic a malady than AIDS, which, in fact, is most often rooted in romance (or something like it). Among the veteran cast are Rosario Dawson, Anthony Rapp, Jesse L. Martin, Idina Menzel, Wilson Jermaine Heredia, Tracie Thoms and Taye Diggs. The extras are generous, and include commentary from director Chris Columbus and various cast members; the feature-length documentary, “No Day But Today”; a profile of Larson, who died in 1996; and making-of material covering the gestation of both the musical and movie. -- Gary Dretzka MCN Review: If Rent: The Movie was cut by 30 minutes, since somehow, on film, the rent battle becomes truly uninteresting, it might have been really terrific. I would say that Chris Columbus would also need to be replaced, but if he had the insight to make the cuts, he might have had the insight to make the film a little more realistic visually and to stop playing musical numbers to an unseen proscenium arch. Pride, Unprejudiced: Chris Columbus says Rent is the movie he was born to make. Not Home Alone, not Harry Potter pictures, not Mrs. Doubtfire, but Rent. The amiable 47-year-old director will tell you that he intimately knows the time, the setting, he knows the people. In 1989, the era in which the movie version is set, he was, he says, himself living in an unheated loft, among hopefuls and the hapless, less Puccini's "La boheme" revised than Columbus' own pocket change revisited. As the rare, full-blown, sung-through movie musical, Rent roars, pounding away at just over two hours, with a few numbers trimmed from the "rock opera," and with a restlessly swirling, Steadicam-based shooting style. Rent rushes past with hardly a pause.
	MirrorMask Movies as self-consciously phantasmagorical as MirrorMask once could be counted on to attract art students and potheads, if no one else. Even if such trippy pictures lacked a compelling storyline, there would be enough brain candy dispensed on-screen to keep audiences from drifting off to the concession stands for munchies. MirrorMask, which debuted at last year's Sundance, was shown only on a handful of screens before being targeted for an extensive DVD release. With any luck at all, this is where the Jim Henson Productions title will find its natural audience – instead of the previously intended kids' crowd -- and the PG-rating won't confuse anyone into thinking Miss Piggy is going to do a cameo. Instead, relative newcomer Stephanie Leonidas plays a 15-year-old girl, Helena, who's tired of working in the family business. During an argument about her future in their circus, Helena lays one of those curses on her mother that only come true when a lesson is to be administered in movie form. And, boy does she learn a lesson. After her mom falls deathly ill, Helena enters a dreamland populated with fantasy characters wearing masks. It's here that she discovers a way to save her mother's life, as well as that of the kingdom's White Queen. As imagined by graphic novelist Neil Gaiman (Sandman) and writer Dave McKean, MirrorMask offers a sepia-tinged world that's as imaginatively conceived as any drawn by Tim Burton. If only the story could match the art design and CGI magic. Gaiman and McKean owe a debt of gratitude to Lewis Carroll and L. Frank Baum, and, at least, a nod to Burton and Terry Gilliam, too. And, remember, don't Bogart that joint. -- Gary Dretzka
	Domino Domino?I like half of it. I find what Tony Scott is trying to do with the camera and the titling, etc. to be pretty interesting. The story of Domino Harvey is compelling. And Keira Knightley, more a star than an actress, holds her own with style, sexiness, and humor. And through the first act the somewhat hyperreal, stylized story of a young girl who gives up the laconic glamour of her life to become a bounty hunter rings true enough to keep you in it. And then, Scott jumps the R.V… literally. And what was compelling about the film becomes a lot less gripping because we just stop believing it. -- David Poland Pride, Unprejudiced: Determined to prove she's not just another pretty set of hipbones, Keira Knightley is game and glittering at the center of Tony Scott's Domino, where the brother of Sir Ridley is again out to prove he's Papi Pendejo but also at least the Baron of ADD or Duke of Asperger's.
	Midnight Cowboy All The President's Men The connecting tissue here, if one were absolutely necessary, are the superb performances in both pictures by Dustin Hoffman, although it’s also possible to point to his ability to shine opposite handsome blond actors, specifically Jon Voight and Robert Redford. The timing of these bonus-laden volumes, though, also is significant in that the All the President’s Men DVD arrives in the wake of the revelation of Woodstein’s Deep Throat, while Midnight Cowboy bridges one Best Picture winner about a gay cowboy (albeit of the drugstore variety) with this year’s likely winner, Brokeback Mountain, in which a pair of cowboys (sheep herders, actually) knock boots in a pup tent. Is that tangential enough for you? All the President’s Men includes fresh material on Mark Felt, who last year outted himself as Deep Throat, as well as commentary by Robert Redford, making-of material and a vintage interview with Jason Robards, from Dinah Shore’s talk show. It’s possible to re-visit this well-crafted political thriller and mourn the passing of an era when newspapers answered more to their subscribers than Wall Street analysts. Midnight Cowboy was the first and only X-rated film to win the Oscar for Best Picture. (It has since been re-rated “R”) This DVD volume is enhanced by new behind-the-scenes material, as well as commentary by producer Jerome Hellman; documentaries on the ratings and thematic material; and a remembrance of director John Schlesinger, who died two years ago. The film may look a bit dated 36 years later, but its portrait of life in and around a very different Times Square never grows old.-- Gary Dretzka
The Weather Man Critics were split right down the middle on Gore Verbinski’s portrait of a middle-aged Chicago weathercaster who’s trying desperately to make sense of a life best left unexamined. The more banal of the reviews dismissed the film as too bleak and depressing for public consumption – God forbid – while others admired its willingness to challenge those viewers whose concept of American family life isn’t limited to the Brady Bunch. Dave Spritz (Nicolas Cage) performs the local weather report much in the same way it’s done nightly on countless TV stations around the globe, with an eye for comic relief from the vital coverage of car chases, warehouse fires and drive-by shootings. At this juncture in his life, however, Spritz must come to grips with several disparate ordeals: the father (Michael Caine) he loves, fears and admires is soon to die; the neurotic ex-wife (Hope Davis) he still cherishes is about to marry another man; his kids have begun learning some harsh truths about post-pubescent life; and a major change in his career looms on the horizon. These challenges weigh as heavily on Spritz’ shoulders as the freezing rain on an El platform in Chicago’s Loop. What I liked about The Weather Man was its depiction of one man’s unrelenting love for his family, as estranged as it might be. Spritz never gives up trying to impress his unsupportive father – himself, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer – or hoping he will keep his less-than-perfect children from verbal and physical abuse. He’s living proof that being a son, father and husband is rarely easy, and the highs pass far more quickly than the lows. Voiceover monologues and occasional flashbacks leave Cage plenty of time to look miserable … which, of course, he can do in his sleep. If any of this capsule review makes The Weather Man sound unappetizing, renting the DVD probably won’t make the experience any more pleasant. That said, however, it will mean missing one of the most bizarre bits of dialogue in recent memory: hearing the great British thespian, Caine, earnestly explain the fashion faux pas known as “camel-toe” to Cage, in reference to his thusly nicknamed daughter’s choice of stretch pants. The bonus features are informative and show Chicago weather to be every bit as horrific as it actually can be in winter. -- Gary Dretzka
Proof Shakespeare in Love director John Madden re-teams with Gwyneth Paltrow in this emotionally charged adaptation of David Auburn's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Proof. The Miramax diva plays Catherine, the daughter of a brilliant mathematician (Anthony Hopkins), who, somewhere along the line, got lost in his logarithms and flipped out. Upon the event of his death, Catherine is allowed time to reflect both on the many sacrifices she made to care for her father and the likelihood she inherited the seeds of his madness. When a graduate student (the suddenly ubiquitous Jake Gyllenhaal) discovers a notebook filled with an astounding mathematical proof (don't worry, you won't be tested), Catherine must prove to him and her overbearing sister that she was as capable as her father of genius. Paltrow, who played Catherine on stage, turns in another stellar performance here. Proof is especially recommended to those who weren't intimidated by the subject matter in the somewhat similar A Beautiful Mind.-- Gary Dretaka
Just Like Heaven Reese Witherspoon appeared in two movies in 2005. This is the one for which she wasn't nominated as Best Actress. Not that the bubbly blond didn't deserve all the money she made for this overly familiar romantic comedy, in which meeting-cute is given a paranormal twist. It's just that, without Witherspoon, Just Like Heaven would have all the depth of your average wading pool. In the San Francisco-set confection, she plays an ER doctor so consumed with her work that almost no time is left for dating, or even a decent dinner. Apparently, though, her Elizabeth has elected to rent one of those perfect dwellings only a studio executive could consider affordable. It's also an apartment coveted by an improbably wealthy landscape gardener and grieving widower, David, who is stunned to learn that it's haunted by guess-who's ghost. No, he doesn't believe it, either, but, then, it's just as unlikely a gardener could afford the rent. Eventually, of course, David and Elizabeth connect in non-ethereal form. By that time, however, any guy roped into watching this DVD by his wife or girlfriend will be asleep and unable to appreciate the neat twist of fate that occurs at the film's end. Witherspoon is wonderful, but those not completely in love with the genre will be left underwhelmed. -- Gary Dretzka
Zathura: A Space Adventure This appealing sci-fi fantasy/adventure laid a big egg upon its release, just before last year's Thanksgiving holiday. On paper, at least, Zathura had almost everything going for it: in Chris van Allsburg, a direct link to the 1995 hit Jumanji; some very favorable reviews in respectable newspapers; a trailer that promised some terrific CGI effects; Jon Favreau, who directed Elf; and an established father figure in Tim Robbins. All that was missing, really, was Robin Williams and some wild animals. And, yet, right out of the gate, it failed to find an audience. Where were all those people who supposedly were crying out for PG-rated entertainment last year, and who, given the opportunity, would rush to the local megaplex to see wholesome family pictures? Well, they weren't at Zathura and MirrorMask, that's for sure. Just as in Jumanji, an antique board game transports a pair of brothers – and their dandy Craftsman bungalow abode -- into a world far beyond their wildest dreams, and those of most NASA employees. Anyway, it's a lot of fun to watch, and the bonus features aren't bad, either. -- Gary Dretzka
The Thing About My Folks Here's another movie that attempts to take flight on the wings of an irresistible star. In this case, it's the estimable Peter Falk, who's so mastered the art of playing a lovable curmudgeon, he could do it sleep walking … which, saints be praised, he doesn't do here. Paul Reiser's story revolves around a letter left one day on the pillow of his character's father, Sam (Falk), by the man's long-suffering wife, Muriel (Olympia Dukakis). It's time, she feels, to take a powder from the marriage and go find herself. While the kids panic, Sam decides to take a road trip of own. He and his son take off for Upstate New York, where they look at property, buy a classic car, take in a ballgame and get hit on at a local bar by a horny mother-daughter tag team. Everything that one would expect to transpire in such a scenario, in fact, does … in pretty much the order you'd expect that it would. But, Falk's a blast, and Reiser makes a pleasant foil for his gags and kernels of wisdom (although, c'mon, did the world need more fart and prostate jokes?). Their fans will enjoy The Thing About My Folks, even there's nothing much else to support the premise.-- Gary Dretzka
Nine Lives If the conceit behind Nine Lives had exceeded writer-director Rodrigo Garcia's grasp of the medium, the elliptical collection of Carver-like short stories would have come across as just another overly ambitious parlor trick for the arthouse crowd. Instead, the nine loosely connected episodes – all describing a specific crisis in the lives of nine everyday women, and each shot in a single 10-minute take – are woven into an exceptionally intricate quilt, at once compelling and greatly unsettling. Garcia, son of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, elicits passionate performances from Elpidia Carillo, Amy Brenneman, Glenn Close, Dakota Fanning, Sissy Spacek, Holly Hunter, Molly Parker, Robin Wright Penn. Lisa Gay Hamilton, Mary Kay Place and Kathy Baker, several of whom Garcia uses both as protagonists and background players. The bonus material includes a lengthy interview session at the Actors Studio, with Garcia, Brenneman, Hamilton and Baker. Blessedly, it wasn't hosted by the fawning nitwit, James Lipton. It's splendid movie, but probably not for the American Pie crowd. - Gary Dretzka
The Journey Given the critical and popular success of Brokeback Mountain, there's hope a decidedly non-exploitative drama about two teen girls in love could find a place outside the Gay/Lesbian ghetto in video stores. Shot in lush and lovely Kerala, India, The Journey tells the same tale of forbidden love told in most other romances in which families stubbornly put their traditions, reputation and financial stability ahead of true love. Here, a close friendship among childhood friends Kiran and Delilah blossoms into a relationship that has tongues in the remote village wagging at warp speed. Because this is an Indian movie, the role played by families in the courtship ritual is especially pronounced. Arranged marriages are the norm, and any deviation from tradition is greeted with equal measures of fear and despair. As first-time writer-director Ligy J. Pullappally makes abundantly clear, Indian women too often are defined by the success of their husbands, and the odds of fulfillment outside a traditionally conceived marriage are small. Also, because this is a movie made elsewhere than Hollywood, the girls go way out of their way not to disrespect their parents, and the urge to exchange fluids comes only after a gently poetic wooing. Like Brokeback, too, real hearts are broken, and the ramifications of forbidden love are tangible. Moreover, the look of the film is splendid, and it is supported by a wonderful soundtrack. At times, the dialogue on the test disc I received was mushy to the ear, but the subtitles were easy to read. - Gary Dretzka
Emmanuel's Gift Twin sisters, as well as collaborators on this inspirational documentary, Lisa Lax and Nancy Stern logged hundreds of hours of camera time, both here and in Africa, to tell the story of Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah. The Ghanaian athlete was born with a severely deformed right leg in a country where such maladies often resulted in abandonment or murder. Instead of succumbing to the usual indignities of life there, Yeboah committed himself to combating the prejudices of his countrymen, 10 percent of whom are born with such disabilities. He hoped to accomplish this bicycling more than 600 kilometers, across Ghana, with one leg. His cause found champions in the United States, as well. These included Oprah Winfrey, who agreed to narrate Emmanuel's Gift. - Gary Dretzka
La Bete Humaine: Criterion Collection Anyone who’s taken even a single cinema-history course in college will recall the reverence with which Jean Renoir’s name is held by professors and bespectacled cineastes (a.k.a. film nerds). Actually liking “The Rules of the Game” and “The Grand Illusion” wasn’t required of students seeking a decent grade, but it helped if they at least faked an interest in the classics. A less demanding assignment, perhaps, would have been screening Renoir’s pre-noir thriller "La Bete Humaine" (“The Human Beast”) for the kids not majoring in film. It would have been every bit as useful academically, as this Criterion Collection edition attests, and a blast to watch. Made in 1938, Renoir’s contemporization of the Emile Zola novel contains all the sexual tension, graphic violence and Freudian references the screen could hold in those days. The great Jean Gabin plays a train engineer who witnesses a murder in a first-class compartment, but fails to admit as much to the police. Instead, he allows himself to become ensnarled in a web woven by a femme fatale (Simone Simon) and her station-manager husband (Fernand Ledoux). Although “La Bete Humaine” is most often characterized as “poetic realism” – and hard labor rarely looked so aesthetically appealing – it anticipated the murky conventions of film noir by a good 10 years. The bonus features are quite wonderful, especially a TV homage to Renoir in which he re-creates a scene from the picture with Simon. Another TV snippet from the ’50s features a group discussion among some quintessentially French intellectuals and critics. It’s a hoot. - Gary Dretzka
TV-to-DVD Grey's Anatomy: Season 1 Significant Others: The Complete Series All-American Girl: The Complete Series The Pretender: The Complete Third Season Even after it was awarded a prime Sunday-night timeslot -- following Desperate Housewives -- no one could have expected ABC's freshman hospital drama, Grey's Anatomy, to become as powerful a ratings force as it did. For one thing, the series was given a midseason tryout at a time when such experiments were largely ignored by shrinking broadcast audiences. Moreover, at first glance, it didn't look much different than the dozens of hospital dramas that have aired since Ben Casey and Dr. Kildare, except that the doctors didn't look old enough to vote, let alone perform surgery, and the promos promised lots of shots of them stripping down to their underwear. Well, the placement worked like a charm, as viewers elected to stay with ABC, even after the last desperate housewife stripped down to her britches. The DVD collection of first-season episodes should do well, and fans of the show likely will enjoy the behind-the-scenes extras. Broadcast originally on cable's basic-plus Bravo channel, Significant Others didn't enjoy the marketing support, reach and ability to employ nudity to boost ratings as similarly adult-oriented shows on HBO and Showtime. It deserved a better shot at success, but it wasn't in the cards. The series, which relied on improvised dialogue, didn't have any stars attached to it, either. Nonetheless, the ensemble comedy offered many entertaining glimpses at the lives of couples engaged in the process of healing their marriages through counseling. Fans of Margaret Cho's stand-up routines have already heard the horror stories behind the short, unlamented life of All-American Girl: The Complete Series. The series, which lasted 19 episodes in 1994-95 season, inserted the Korean-American comic into situations not terribly unlike those she experienced growing up in San Francisco. ABC famously decided Cho's reality wasn't funny enough for its taste, and she was a poor representation of herself. For one thing, Cho was deemed too fat to play herself, so she forced herself to lose the weight she wouldn't have thought of shedding in real life … not in such a short time, anyway. The same sense of humor that got Cho the gig in the first place, too, suddenly was considered unrepresentative of someone growing up in a Korean family in San Francisco, which, of course, she had. Their loss was stand-up's gain. Fans likely will want to sample the show, if only to witness first-hand how network meddling ruined a perfectly decent concept. But, that's hardly news. In the NBC sci-fi thriller series, The Pretender, a brooding Michael T. Weiss played a human chameleon whose ability to take on other people's personality caused him to be kidnapped as a child by a mysterious agency known simply as the Centre. After escaping from the clutches of the Centre, as an adult, Jarod vowed never to use his powers for evil purposes, again. Moreover, agents from the Centre desperately want Jarod back in the fold. In the third season, peripheral characters are given more depth, and the threat of a Jarod clone becomes real. - Gary Dretzka
The Dick Cavett Show: Comic Legends Shout Factory’s hitting streak continues with this indispensable collection of episodes from Dick Cavett’s talk show, from the late-’60s to the mid-’70s. The focus of this four-disc set, which logs in at 840-minutes, is on comedians. For those too young to remember such things, guest appearances on talk shows of the period weren’t limited exclusively to pitching some 20-year-old nitwit’s most recent record, movie or TV show. More often than not, celebrities and entertainers were invited to a show for no other reason than to make viewers laugh. The Dick Cavett Show: Comic Legends includes extended conversations with such iconic figures as Groucho Marx, Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, Jack Benny, George Burns, Bill Cosby, Woody Allen, Truman Capote, Ruth Gordon, the Smothers Brothers, Jerry Lewis, Mel Brooks and the first celebrity film critic, Rex Reed. Sadly, even the least inspired of the interviews is infinitely more amusing and revelatory than any similar chat on a contemporary late-night gabfest. - Gary Dretzka
Action: The Complete Series Although it was a mere six years ago that Action somehow found its way onto Fox’s prime-time schedule, it feels as if it’s been a century. Starring Jay Mohr, as desperate studio executive Peter Dragon, the then-controversial sitcom recalled Robert Altman’s The Player, in that it was more concerned with the dingbats who green-light the movies than what actually makes it to the screen. Moreover, though, Action was notorious for its willingness to stretch the boundaries of good taste on television sitcoms. The viewers who got the most value from the 13 episodes – only 8 of which aired on Fox, before the show was moved to cable – were those who could read lips. The network decision to bleep and blur the show’s naughtier bits rendered it largely incomprehensible. They can now be seen in all their uncensored glory on DVD. Ironically, its failure cleared the path for other producers willing to test traditional boundaries, especially those creating shows today for non-premium cable networks such as FX and BBC America. Among the guest stars were Keanu Reeves, Salma Hayek, Scott Wolf and Sandra Bullock.