The Virginian-Pilot
“BREACH”
HD and enhanced widescreen, 2006, R for language, violence, sexuality
Best extra: “The Mole,” a profile of Robert Hanssen that aired on NBC’s “Dateline”
Billy Ray, writer/director of “Breach,” says he’s drawn to characters “who are about deception.” He couldn’t have found a subject more to his liking than Robert Hanssen.
The career FBI man, a devout Catholic and father of six, was nabbed in Fairfax County in February 2001. The damage he caused over some 15 years spying for the Soviet Union is regarded as the gravest beach in Bureau history.
Why’d he do it? No one knows, but “The Mole,” which aired on “Dateline,” offers meaty insights from ex-colleagues. It also turns a light on big-league espionage. Truly, no one could make this stuff up.
None of that would matter a whit without the fierce performance of Chris Cooper, which makes “Anatomy of a Character,” in which he discusses his approach to playing Hanssen, better than most features.
Other extras include a commentary with Ray and Eric O’Neill, the former FBI operative played by Ryan Phillippe, and deleted/extended scenes.
The captivating HD-DVD combo disc – check the fine facial details of Cooper and Phillippe – includes Universal’s pop-up video commentary. In it, O’Neill recalls the memories evoked when he was on the set.
— Craig Shapiro
“GHOST RIDER: EXTENDED EDITION”
HD widescreen and enhanced widescreen, 2007, not rated but look out for horror images, action violence and some language.
Best extra: A detailed, three-part, 82-minute “making-of” with cast and crew interviews.
Viewers like their comic book tales and special effects – and there’s plenty to be found in the two-disc Extended Cut of “Ghost Rider,” based on the Marvel comic of the same name.
It’s still a fun ride, even if it was written and directed by Mark Steven Johnson – he of the disastrous “Daredevil.” The story, starring Nicolas Cage as Johnny Blaze, the devil’s bounty hunter, comes close to disaster here with uneven writing. Cage saves it, along with Sam Elliott, Peter Fonda, the aforementioned great effects, a snazzy score and a sense of humor.
The film is also available on Blu-ray, which offers the best picture and sound. Details are great, especially in Cage's initial transformation scene. Sound is superior to the standard-def edition where dialogue fades under explosive sound effects.
Both presentations come packed with extras, although you’ll miss the entertaining “Sin and Salvation: Comic Book Origins of Ghost Rider” which is only available on the standard-def 2-disc set.
— Kay Reynolds
‘GHOSTS OF ABU GHRAIB’
Enhanced widescreen, 2007, TV-MA for graphic imagery, nudity
Best extra: 30 minutes of additional footage, part of which explains how a person can suffer from psychosis in just 24 to 48 hours.
Nearly all Americans are by now familiar with the iconic images of Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, including the hooded prisoner on the box attached to electrodes, and the image of a grinning Lynnide England pointing at disgraced nude prisoners. These images and more are partly the topic of the HBO documentary, that captures firsthand the torture and atrocities committed there. Soldiers explain how, working under limited resources, governmental propaganda and unthinkable anxiety, they cracked to commit almost inhumane acts; a few prisoners, recount being sexually humiliated, deprived sleep, tortured with sound and water or forced to blaspheme.
(Reports later revealed that as many as 90 percent of the prisoners there were innocent.) The films’ slant will no doubt be labeled by some as “liberal” since war is, well, war. While the film does raise the question about what tactics must be used to stop terrorists, experts here conclude that the violations, almost uniformly sanctioned by the Bush administration, violate the articles of the Geneva Convention and will prove more effective at producing new terrorists than finding the one or two percent of legitimate terrorists in custody. No matter what side of the war one stands on, one leaves this film with a sobering look at exactly what ugly things are transpiring inside this prison all in the name of freedom.
— Malcolm Venable
“BLOOD DIAMOND”
HD widescreen, 2006, R for strong violence and language
Best extra: The hard-hitting documentary “Blood on the Stone” from Sierra Leone journalist/filmmaker Sorious Samura, who follows a conflict stone from the ground to the store.
Earlier this year, the African epic had the distinction of featuring the worst DVD picture in years. Digital artifacts were prevalent during the first 30 minutes, making the Warner Bros. disc useless on my 90-inch home theater screen. But, the studio has redeemed itself for the Blu-ray disc with a gorgeous HD image, providing a rich color palette and clarity unmatched for Edward Zwick’s (“Glory” and “The Last Samurai”) melodrama, where death and diamonds go hand-in-hand.
Leonardo DiCaprio (Danny Archer) gives a grand Oscar-nominated performance - possibly his best - as a former mercenary-turned-diamond smuggler in war torn Sierra Leone. His life intersections with Djimon Hounsou (Soloman Vandy) a fisherman forced into the diamond fields, for the brutal rebel forces. A rare pink stone surfaces which could be Vandy’s ticket to get his family out of the country. But, his 10-year-old son has been kidnapped and brainwashed into a killing machine - child solider - for the same rebels.
The discs feature a commentary with Zwick, short documentaries highlighting stars DiCaprio, Jennifer Connelly as the American photojournalist and filming the siege of the Freetown, based on real events in 1999.
HD-DVD owners, your “Blood Diamond” arrives in early July, featuring the more sophisticated pop-up video commentary with interviews and behind-the-scene footage shown simultaneously with the movie. Warner does provide most of those clips (47 minutes) on this disc, but not viewable while watching Zwick’s film.
— Bill Kelley III
“BLOOD & CHOCOLATE”
HD widescreen & enhanced widescreen, 2007, PG-13 for violence/terror, some sexuality and substance abuse.
Best extra: Deleted scenes provide a little more background on the characters.
There isn’t anything of Lon Chaney’s werewolf transformation in Katja von Garnier’s “Blood & Chocolate.” Nothing of “American Werewolf in London” or “Van Helsing” either. Think chick-flick-goes-to-the-dogs – in an elegant kind of way.
Because it’s all about the romance here, so that means no messy skin-splitting or sprouting of fur. It’s just an instant transformation from human to wolf via a Peter Pan-like sparkle. The pack has plans for lone wolf girl Agnes Bruckner, not the least of which is pairing her off with pack leader Oliver Martinez. When wolf girl falls for a mortal, Hugh Dancy (“Elizabeth I,” “Blackhawk Down”), who just happens to be in Romania researching legends of the loup-garou for his upcoming graphic novel, the pack gets surly and the chase is on.
Based on Annette Curtis Klause's intelligent young adult book, the film falls more in line with the stylish fantasy of Len Wiseman’s “Underworld” films. It takes itself very seriously, playing on the conflict between mankind and werewolf rather than vampire and lycan (werewolf). Still, no one fights better than family versus family, and viewers will find that action here.
Viewers will also find one of the dullest commentaries ever produced with Garnier and Martinez, who sound as though they are just getting to know one another instead of having worked together for months.
On the big-plus side, the Blu-ray picture and sound are great, well-suited to the romantic tale. The Romanian setting is beautiful; the characters are slim, exotic and gorgeous. A female who appears early in the film is known as Sexy Red from the commentary. She is just that, with curves and moves in places most people normally don’t. HD gives her a great show. Sound is balanced and distinctive, merging effects and dialogue to provide the best of both.
— Kay Reynolds
“BLACK CHRISTMAS”
HD widescreen, 2006, Unrated but contains graphic violence and buckets of blood and some obligatory nudity.
Best extra: "May All Your Christmases Be Black," a candid featurette where director Glen Morgan talks openly about the box office failure of "Willard" and admits that if "Black Christmas" doesn't make money, he probably won't be making any more movies. Sheesh!
Morgan's ("The X-Files," "Final Destination") remake of the late Bob Clark's classic holiday slasher flick was one of the most lambasted horror films of 2006. Loaded up with interchangeable TV actresses playing sorority sisters getting hacked to pieces by a twisted killer, the film delivers gore in spades but fails to raise a single hair on the back of the viewer's neck.
From a purely technical standpoint, this is one of the finest HD releases yet. The picture is incredibly detailed and sharp and colors, especially the blood, leap off the screen. The disc includes a lossless Dolby True HD track.
— Josh Boone
“HARSH TIMES”
HD widescreen, 2005, R for strong violence, language and drug use.
Best extra: David ("Training Day") Ayer's commentary about the challenges he faced as a first-time director on the low-budget film.
Christian Bale should stick to working with Christopher Nolan ("Batman Begins") because Ayer doesn't protect him well in "Harsh Times." While Bale is convincing and powerful when he's getting his Travis Bickle on, he's much less convincing and somewhat laughable cruising the world of Latino street thugs and acting like a moron. The story takes place over 24 hours and involves a slowly disintegrating Bale coming apart at the seams after learning he wasn't accepted into the police academy for psychological reasons.
This is a very hard film to judge from a high-def standpoint. Most of the film was shot on Super 16 and although I feel it’s an accurate representation of what Ayer was able to achieve during the short shoot, the film looks downright ugly on HD. It's grainy and soft and is a strange choice for high definition. On the other hand, the lossless audio track is excellent, servicing the hip hop soundtrack and thunderous gunshots.
— Josh Boone
“SEVEN YEARS IN TIBET” HD widescreen, 1997, PG-13 for language and violence
Best extra: Zippo. Not a single documentary, commentary or deleted scene.
Austrian Heinrich Harrer (Brad Pitt) was one of the Nazis’ prized mountain climbers, when the British arrested him in the Himalayas at the start of World War II. After a fearless escape from a P.O.W. camp in India, Harrer and his best friend head off to Tibet.
Based on Harrer’s autobiography where he becomes a friend/tutor of the young present-day Dalai Lama. French director Jean-Jacques Annaud (“The Bear” “Enemy at the Gates”) helms this sometimes slow, but beautifully photographed story filmed in Argentina to simulate the highest country in the world.
The high-def Blu-ray disc has a much sharper and more accurate color spectrum than Sony’s prized Superbit DVD, considered the one best of the discs a few years ago. Literally, you can see the detail in thousands of rocks, as the duo maneuver along a mountain peak. The Tibetan music features a much cleaner bass sound from the huge horns, featured on the uncompressed soundtrack. For you sound geeks, it’s streaming 34 times more bits per second, than your puny iPod. And, you thought that gadget sounded great?
— Bill Kelley III
In the last sixty-two years a lot of film stock has been devoted to the subject of WWII. One would think that every possible angle on this conflict had been covered by somebody, at one time or another.
Then along comes “Days of Glory” (audio: ****, video: ****, extras: **), and another great assumption is shot all to...well, you know.
Released overseas under the title "Indigenes," it tells the story of a unit made up of Berbers, Moroccans, Algerians and Senegalese, recruited and conscripted from the French North African colonies, that fought their way from the coast of Italy to the Alsace between 1942 and 1944.
In a making-of featurette, writer/director Rachid Bouchereb tells of the revelation he had on hearing that his grandfather was a WWII vet and that some of his relatives had fought for France during the First World War.
Tramping miles through European snow in sandals, (boots didn't get generally issued until shortly before the final campaign), the unit is not only decimated by the German army, but faces unyielding prejudice from their own officers. "Regular" French troops would get leave. The Arabs don't. The "regular" troops get the occasional promotion, battlefield or otherwise. The Arabs could forget about that. Skin color determines how well one does in the mess line.
The bullets and bombs seem to be equal opportunity, though.
The ensemble cast won the Best Actor award, as a group, at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival.
Included with this film is an animated short, "The Colonial Friend", a stark and sad pencil drawn piece about a Senegalese conscript and what happens when he tries to get his back wages.
Those who paid attention to history in high school will not be surprised to know that more than a few of those men who fought so bravely for France would, in less than ten years, fight for, and win, their Independence from France. (Enhanced widescreen, 2006, R for violence)
— Mike Reynolds
Sure there’s social commentary embedded between Gabriel Kaplan’s familial jokes, a hypnotic series theme song by John Sebastian and hot-to-trot lead character in John Travolta, but those aren’t the only things going for "Welcome Back, Kotter: The Complete First Season" (audio: ***, video: ***, extras: **1/2). The characters nail the jokes every time and leave a lasting impression after more than 30 years.
This four-disc set is a keeper.
The diversity, the real-life problems, like dropping out of high school and struggling to survive in a tough Brooklyn neighborhood, make "Welcome Back, Kotter" a sitcom with heart. Along comes someone who can related to these remedial students at Buchanan High dubbed the Sweathogs. We see that one man who cares, one man who made it out of the neighborhood, out of the Sweathogs’ shadow and earned a college degree, can make a difference; plus, Kaplan, the show’s co-creator, makes the students want to do better and learn with corny impressions, cheesy jokes and soul.
The first season’s 22 episodes made these guys stars overnight. I remember Horshack and Epstein T-shirts, I even had a "Welcome Back, Kotter" lunch box. (I also wrote Travolta a fan letter on yellow, flowery stationery during that first season.)
Watching it all these years later, I got an appreciation for what the show was about.
Extras are worthy of a watch - five of the actors’ screen tests, including Freddie "Boom Boom" Washington, are mostly with Kaplan reading the lines to them off camera. It’s interesting that Robert Hegyes auditioned for the role Travolta eventually got, although the initial name was Barbarini — not Barbarino. In"Only a Few Degrees from a Sweathog," Hegyes explains that he thought he got the Barbarino role — only to be told by one of the producers in the elevator with Travolta along for the ride that he was Juan Epstein.
Marcia Strassman, Kaplan’s make-believe, ever-so-understanding wife hosts the making-of bonus. She’s aged quite well. The only principle who doesn’t come back is ... you guessed it, Travolta. It would have been nice to see him reminisce about his big break on this show, just a short, short time before he broke big in "Saturday Night Fever" and "Grease." Even Bruce Willis did commentary for the "Moonlighting" DVDs.
Up your nose with a rubber hose! (Full-screen, 1975-76, not rated)
— Toni Guagenti
“MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – THE SECOND TV SEASON”
Full screen, 1967-68, unrated, mild TV violence
Best extras: Nada
What does it say about a TV series when its lead actor is replaced after the debut season and nary a beat is missed on the sophomore run?
In the case of “Mission: Impossible – The Second TV Season,” it confirms the obvious: Its strength was always the writing. (Having Martin Landau, Barbara Bain, Greg Morris and Peter Lupus in the cast doesn’t hurt, either.)
So when Peter Graves replaced Steven Hill as leader of the IMF, the show picked up right where it left off. His first assignment as Jim Phelps was to put a heroin trafficker out of business. The team’s ingenious plan begins with a phony elevator accident.
With 25 episodes on seven discs, it only gets better.
– Craig Shapiro
“THE HARDY BOYS/NANCY DREW MYSTERIES: SEASON TWO”
Full-screen, 1977, not rated
Best extra: It’d have to be the only extra, “America’s Top Sleuths,” a Sleuth Channel top-10 countdown.
Suffice to say that the stars of “The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries” did not make it into the Sleuth Channel’s Top 10 sleuths in television and film history. They barely made a blip on our television screens in the 1970s.
Season Two lacks extras, the picture is still a bit grainy and the sound ever-so-stuck in the disco decade. That doesn’t even cover the cheesy plots. During this season, Nancy Drew (Pamela Sue Martin) teams up on a rotating basis (later permanently) with Joe and Frank Hardy (Shaun Cassidy and Parker Stevenson respectively) to solve crimes or chase monsters like Dracula.
The five-disc set includes the season’s 22 episodes. Martin cuts out after a few in protest of losing her separate series. The series ends in 1979.
Look for guest appearances by folks such as Rick Springfield, Casey Kasem, Melanie Griffith and Valerie Bertinelli, and an occasional song from heartbreaker Cassidy.
– Toni Guagenti
Regular viewers of "The Practice" need wonder no more why the firm evolved from one that was struggling to make its rent to one that was taking high-profile cases.
Writer/creator David E. Kelley, who had worked on "L.A. Law," discusses that very thing on the extra that accompanies “The Practice: Volume One” (audio: ***, video: **1/2, extras: *), and the big factor was this. The show started as a mid-season replacement with a Tuesday night slot; when it returned it the fall, it was assigned to Saturday nights, a death knell unless there was a murder within the first five minutes to hook the viewer. By the time it moved to Sundays, its heart and soul had changed and that's what the people expected.
Kelley and virtually every cast member come together for a short, but informative putting-together-of "The Practice" featurette. Dylan McDermott (who plays Bobby, the head of the practice) was never supposed to be a good-looking, trim guy. Rather, he was supposed to be unkempt and overweight, but McDermott stole the role. He did his best to fit the type, though, not shaving and going tie-less when appropriate.
Michael Badalucco (Jimmy) originally wasn't intended to be a full-time character. But his personality played off of McDermott's and gave the show something it was missing -- a lawyer with an inferiority complex.
You'll see what Camryn Manheim (Ellenor) and Kelli Williams (Lindsay) also brought, and how each served a specific purpose to rounding out the practice.
Such snippets abound in the extra, then you get to watch the character of the show evolve as Kelley and the writing team changed tacks to meet the demands of the changing time slot. (Full-screen, 1997, not rated)
It's supposed to be a good thing to have measures in place to keep the integrity of military orders intact, but sometimes they can go too far as “Fail Safe” (audio: **1/2, video: ***, extras 1/2) shows.
Take nuclear war. Get orders to carry it out and the enemy might try various critics to thwart the effort, all the while planning a counterattack. So, what's the harm in having a system in place that dictates that bomber pilots are not to pay heed to verbal commands that try to override computer orders to launch a nuclear strike?
This film, a remake of a 1964 film and based on a 1962 book, takes a look at the consequences. It brings together a top-notch cast (Brian Dennehy, George Clooney, Noah Wyle, Richard Dreyfuss, Harvey Keitel and Sam Elliott, among them) and tried something different. When it aired in April 2000, it was done as a live CBS telecast in black and white to take viewers back to the days of the Cold War, adding a touch of realism to the threat of going to war with the Soviet Union.
So what can be done to avert an all-out retaliation? You'll have to see how the president maneuvers to mitigate things as tension mounts as the bombers close in on Moscow. (Enhanced widescreen, 2000, not rated)
The second season was a bit too early for "Diagnosis Murder" to be winning Emmy Awards, but “Diagnosis Murder: The Complete Second Season” (audio: **1/2, video: ***, extras: 0) brings a few episodes that, according to tv.com rank among the series' Top 50.
Among the more bizarre of those is "My Baby is Out of This World," where a musician dies and his wife claims to be carrying an alien child. Wonder who the killer will be? Leave it to Dr. Mark Sloan (Dick Van Dyke) and his colleagues Dr. Jack Stewart (Scott Baio) and Detective Steve Sloan (Barry Van Dyke).
And just to show that no one is exempt from suspicion, a hospital bigwig Norman Briggs (Michael Tucci) is suspected with the chairman of a philanthropic group dies in "A Very Fatal Funeral" and Mark Sloan himself is the top suspect in the season opener "Many Happy Returns," after his accountant is found dead on the day of his tax audit. (Full-screen, 1994-95, not rated)
Clark Gable and Carole Lombard. The quintessential Hollywood couple.
But they were only in one film together, and that movie was “No Man of Her Own” (audio: **1/2, video: **, extras: 1/2), which predates their marriage by seven years and during the filming of which, Hollywood pundits say, Gable and Lombard did not have an affair.
In the only extra, film historian Robert Osborne also explains the twists that brought these two together on the silver screen. Gable plays Babe Stewart, a card shark (or cheat, depending on your perspective) who has to flee New York City when the vice cops are getting too close to his case. He goes to this small town where he meets Connie Randall (Lombard), a librarian who is looking for something bigger than Glendale.
When they return to the big city, Gable tries to keep his past from Lombard.
Just in case you recognize Lombard's mother, Elizabeth Patterson also played Mrs. Trumbull on the "I Love Lucy" series. And as a bit of trivia, the library ladder scene (tame by today's standards) led to the founding of the Hollywood League of Decency. The reproduction isn't great, but the film is 75 years old, so no doubt it has some flaws. (Full-screen, 1932, not rated)
“Walker, Texas Ranger: The Third Season” (audio: ***, video: ***, extras: 0) continues where the previous season of the CBS TV show leaves.
Chuck Norris, who plays Texas Ranger Cordell Walker, is a terse, smooth, kick-butt character who takes no nonsense from the bad guys. And Season Three gets a little deeper into the relationships Walker has with his “family” that includes partner James Trivette (Clarence Gilyard Jr.), best friend C.D. Parker (Noble Willingham) and assistant district attorney Alex Cahill (Sheree J. Wilson).
For fans of the show, Walker, in the first season, didn’t really groove with Trivette, a college-educated former Dallas Cowboy, who became a Ranger after a football injury ended his gridiron days. In Season Three, however, the two are tighter than two peas in a pod. Walker and Cahill heat up their “love interest” in each other.
Seven discs plus 26 episodes equal action-packed, good-versus-bad kick-but Western action.
“Walker, Texas Ranger: The Third Season” is a winner, even without extras. (Full-screen, 1995, not rated)
— Cliff Redding
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