DVD Report
New Release | Tom Russo
'The Queen' treats a time of trial with deft touch
For a story rooted in hurt, "The Queen " (2006 ) offers quite a surprising dose of humor when viewed again on DVD. Best-actress Oscar winner Helen Mirren and director Stephen Frears certainly made their portrayal of Elizabeth II a fascinatingly detailed study, from her ingrained starchy regality to her timeless hairdo.
At first pass, this spot-on impersonation is all about providing insight into the British royal family's awkward, seemingly frosty response to the death of Princess Diana . But Mirren and Frears also slip in any number of character-driven bits of wry, subtle comedy, deftly playing off the idea that for all her staunch, arguably wrongheaded adherence to tradition, Elizabeth is a modern monarch. (Michael Sheen , as an equally credible Tony Blair , acts as our surrogate within the film in perplexedly trying to reconcile the two.)
Take a look at recent period dramas gaping at the over-the-top excesses of royalty, and just try not to chuckle at Elizabeth, Prince Philip (familiar American character actor James Cromwell ) and the Queen Mum bickering as they crowd around a modest TV set for Diana updates. Better still is the image of Elizabeth at the wheel of a creaky jeep, tooling through the Scottish backcountry, firmly knotted kerchief atop her head, and firmly downturned mouth framing her face. Who knew that these days, the British throne looks so much like a bucket seat?
Extras: In addition to a production featurette and commentary by Frears and writer Peter Morgan , the disc includes a track by royals expert Robert Lacey . Apparently this is the sort of gig that makes one take oneself almost as seriously as a royal -- there's ample talk from Lacey about how often he's met Elizabeth, etc. -- but he does weigh in on the likelihood of Elizabeth actually cursing over car trouble. (Miramax, $29.99)
"NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM" (2006)
A sweet, slight kids' book gets high-concept Ben Stiller treatment in this action-comedy about a security guard at New York's Museum of Natural History who finds the exhibits coming to life during the late shift. Visually, the movie can be a lot of fun, with frenetic effects shots giving swooping looks at a kitchen-sink commingling of historical diorama escapees, taxidermied wildlife, and a tyrannosaurus skeleton. But there isn't all that much to keep adults genuinely amused, despite some eclectic casting: Dick Van Dyke as a veteran watchman, Robin Williams as Teddy Roosevelt, and Ricky Gervais as a tweedy curator.
Extras: Director Shawn Levy supplies commentary, but it takes a backseat to a track by writers Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant, an increasingly busy scripting duo better known for their improv work on "Reno 911." They're in pretty good form here, too, joking about how their commentary is either for film students or remote-challenged viewers. (Fox, $34.98; single-disc version also available, $29.98)
"THE DREW CAREY SHOW": THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON (1995-96)
Looking back, we might not have known just how hard Drew Carey's Cleveland did rock. This correspondent was backstage when the cast accepted a trophy for best new sitcom at the People's Choice Awards -- but it was split with "The Jeff Foxworthy Show," just the sort of exercise in blue-collar condescension that "Carey" was not. The series' smart shlubiness is there in the pilot, as Carey, Lewis (Ryan Stiles), and Oswald (Diedrich Bader) toast Brad Pitt's public inaccessibility for improving their chances with the ladies. Then Kathy Kinney's Mimi walks in. . .
Extras: A nice 20-minute retrospective notes that Mimi wasn't originally planned as a regular, and that even the cast marveled at how often -- and how effectively -- series co-creator Bruce Helford used takes where they broke character and laughed. (Warner, $39.98)
"PLANET EARTH": THE COMPLETE SERIES (2007)
This BBC-produced look at the wild kingdom, seen recently on the Discovery Channel, was all about marrying traditional animal documentary approaches with cutting-edge technology , eliminating the necessity for post-production splicing to edit out man's intrusion. For a series all about hi-def, watching on DVD seems a must.
Extras: Production featurettes on all 11 episodes; feature documentary giving the forecast for endangered species and territories. (BBC, $79.98)
Foreign DVD
'Tiger' happily claws its way over the top
The lovesick heroine of "Tears of the Black Tiger" spends the whole movie sitting around waiting for her man to come back to her. She waits under a gazebo in the rain. She waits at a table in her family's mansion. She waits wherever she can, and while she waits a tear glistens down her cheek and the ballads on the soundtrack tell us how exactly she feels: sad, so sad. Her agony is the stuff of an epic karaoke video, the longest, prettiest one ever made. The movie, on the other hand, is absolute meta-cinematic delirium.
A parody of and winking homage to the history of Thai melodrama, Wisit Sasanatieng's uproarious filmmaking debut exuberantly combines pop and kitsch with a wholesome belief in the thrills of bad art. Our heroine, Rumpoey (Stella Malucchi ), is the governor's daughter and the promised bride of Kumjorn (Arawat Ruangvuth ), a pretty-boy police captain. The man she truly loves, Seua Dum (Chartchai Ngamsan ), has become a bandit -- the titular gun-slinging Black Tiger -- in order get closer to the posse that killed his father.
None of this is to suggest that "Tears of the Black Tiger" is a work of conventional professionalism. The amateurism is merrily ubiquitous. It's also a joke. The film looks and feels nothing like the work of Sasanatieng's current Thai peers, but he does share the seeming national disdain for realism.
Somehow, "Black Tiger" arouses the sensations it purports to mock -- ardor, earnestness, bliss -- without sacrificing its sense of humor. That cheesy love story is loosely hitched to the convoluted cowboy revenge plot (a Pad Thai western, if you must), and the fusion is knowingly arch and knowingly over-the-top. The backdrops are phony (rolling plains, for instance, are topped off with a golden sun whose center has been cut out; it's like a set from Pee-Wee's playhouse), and the performances are phonier: If one actor, in an expression of villainy, tosses his head back and bellows, "Ha ha ha ha ha!" they all do.
With its bogus dusks, super-oversaturated color scheme, and hilariously choreographed and edited fight sequences, "Black Tiger" challenges the illusion of moviemaking without puncturing the illusion itself. This is something the films of Busby Berkeley , Kenneth Anger, and Guy Maddin manage to do: create a vivid mirage. One man's bloodbath here is another's tub of Hawaiian Punch. (Magnolia, $26.98)
DVD Box Set | Mark Feeney
Gems from the vault in Renoir collection
During the 1930s, Jean Renoir had what must be the finest directorial decade in screen history. Among the 15 films he made in those years were "Boudu Saved From Drowning," "Le Crime de M. Lange," "Grand Illusion," and "Rules of the Crime. " The one problem with such a phenomenal achievement is that it tends to obscure the rest of a very great career. It's easy to forget just how varied Renoir's filmography is. The three discs of "Jean Renoir: Collector's Edition" bear out just how versatile he was.
The best-known film in the set, 1938's "La Marseillaise" ( above), is a historical epic about the French Revolution. There are four silent films: his first picture, the charming melodrama "La Fille de l'Eau" (1924); a literary adaptation, the somewhat overwrought "Nana, " from the Zola novel (1926); and two shorts, "Sur un Air de Charleston" (1927) and "La Petite Marchande d'allumettes" (1928), an enchanting version of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Match Girl." Two of his last films are included, "Le Testament de Dr. Cordelier" (1961), Renoir's reworking of the Jekyll-and-Hyde story, and "Le Caporal Epingle" (1962), a POW film that at times recalls "Grand Illusion."
The range of genres is startling, but not the range of emotions. Renoir remains the unsurpassed humanist of the cinema. Not one of these films is of the first Renoirian rank (though "La Marseillaise" comes close -- not least of all in his older brother Pierre's performance as Louis XVI ). But that's more a tribute to the very best of Renoir than a criticism of these films. Throughout all of them there are moments rivaling anything in his body of work -- which is to say, the best the medium has to offer.
Extras: Documentary, "Jean Renoir: An Auteur to Remember" (Lionsgate, $29.98; available now)
ALSO THIS WEEK
"DEJA VU" (2006)
Denzel Washington reteams with director Tony Scott ("Crimson Tide," "Man on Fire"), venturing into diminishing-returns territory with a technically polished but dopey thriller about a government agent going time-tripping to thwart a terrorist.
Extras: Production featurettes; deleted scenes. (Touchstone, $29.99)
"THE PIANO TUNER OF EARTHQUAKES" (2006)
The Brothers Quay, the Britain-based stop-motion animators of various nightmares over the years, here present their second feature film with live actors: a heavily stylized Victorian-era tale of passion, madness, and clockwork automata. Perched somewhere between Edward Gorey, Edgar Allan Poe, a Gustave Dore engraving, and a magic-lantern show, it's a detached, hermetic tour de force of imagery. (Zeitgeist Films, $29.99)
--TY BURR
"CODE NAME: THE CLEANER" (2007)
Amnesiac Cedric the Entertainer gets sucked into espionage high jinks alongside Lucy Liu in a comedy you'll be hard-pressed to remember yourself.
Extras: Production featurette. (New Line, $27.95)
REISSUES
"JAMES CAGNEY: THE SIGNATURE COLLECTION" (2007)
Cagney and Bette Davis stretch as a pilot-for-hire and the spoiled heiress he's tapped to kidnap from a planned elopement in "The Bride Came C.O.D." (above), the 1941 screwball comedy leading off this five-disc set. Also includes the war pictures "Captains of the Clouds" and "The Fighting 69th," the musical "The West Point Story," with Doris Day, and the action-comedy "Torrid Zone."
Extras: Vintage newsreels and shorts. (Warner, $49.92; individual titles available separately, $19.97 each)
"JANE EYRE" (1944)
Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine star in this handsome, engrossing adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's classic by director Robert Stevenson ("Mary Poppins"). Companion releases include "Anna Karenina" (1948), with Vivien Leigh, and a "Les Miserables" twin bill, featuring the 1935 and 1952 adaptations.
Extras: On "Jane Eyre," commentary by film historians and former child actress Margaret O'Brien; retrospective featurette. (Fox, $19.98 each)
"ESSENTIAL CLASSICS: ROMANCES" (2007)
Bargain shoppers, charge (it)! "Gone With the Wind," "Casablanca," and "Doctor Zhivago" are collected in a multi-disc set.
Extras: Film historian commentary on "Gone" and "Casablanca"; Omar Sharif commentary on "Zhivago." (Warner, $30.97)
TELEVISION
"THE ODD COUPLE" (1970-71)
Jack Klugman and Tony Randall set about carving out an identity for Neil Simon's setup that's as sharp, funny, and valid as the feature that preceded it.
Extras: Commentary by Klugman and Garry Marshall on select episodes, as well as gag reel footage of Klugman and Randall's 1993 stage version , Klugman's '71 Emmy win, and more. (Paramount, $42.99)
"WKRP IN CINCINNATI " (1978-79)
Funkier in name (Johnny Fever? Venus Flytrap?) than in reality, Howard Hesseman, Tim Reid, and the gang still spun some likable situation comedy. Less likable : a label that "some of the original musical content has been edited for this DVD release," a result of music licensing squabbles that for a time threatened to keep the show off disc, period.
Extras: Creator and cast commentaries; new cast interviews. (Fox, $39.98)
Capsules are written by Globe correspondent Tom Russo and titles are in stores Tuesday unless otherwise specified.
(Correction: Because of a reporting error, a review in Sunday's Movies section of a DVD box set of the early work of Jean Renoir incorrectly stated the title of his film "Rules of the Game.")
