DVD Report
New Releases | Tom Russo
Six-film collection marks Hepburn centennial
You only have to delve one disc deep into the six-film Katharine Hepburn 100th Anniversary Collection (2007) to realize that if you've ever smirked while taking in her spunky, overcaffeinated demeanor or exaggeratedly polished diction, you were smirking with her, not at her.
Hepburn won her first Oscar for a very early role in "Morning Glory"(1933) as an aspiring Broadway actress who knows full well that she prattles on too much, and a bit affectedly at that. The movie itself is a surprisingly frank display of self-awareness for its time, as Hepburn's Eva Lovelace gets chewed up and swallowed (if not spit out) by the star system. Entertainment industry hound dogs prey on her; she drunkenly performs Shakespeare at a party, desperate for her big break; and when she finally rises to the top, she blithely ignores the advice of those who care enough to try to help keep her grounded. So much for the escapism of showbiz glamour.
In "Sylvia Scarlett (1936), Hepburn's first screen pairing with Cary Grant, she puts on a boy's clothes and he puts on a cockney accent in a tale of old-time hustlers ducking trouble. The lineup also includes the flawed Pearl S. Buck adaptation "Dragon Seed"(1944), with Hepburn playing a WWII Chinese peasant; "Without Love"(1945), the collection's requisite Hepburn-Tracy romantic comedy; and the noirish "Undercurrent"(1946), with Robert Mitchum. Wrapping up the set is the last of Hepburn's 10 films with director George Cukor, "The Corn Is Green"(1978), a TV remake casting the actress as a determined teacher in Welsh mining country.
Extras: A disappointing assortment of random shorts. (Warner, $59.92)
"HANNIBAL RISING" (2007)
We don't have a problem with Hannibal Lecter heading back to the body buffet for second helpings. But this new prequel from director Peter Webber ("Girl With a Pearl Earring") and series novelist Thomas Harris has the feel of made-for-cable material. The story opens by showing Lecter and his sister as young, privileged, dietarily normal kids in WWII Lithuania who run into some nasty, starving, soldiers. Flash forward to the young adult Lecter (Gaspard Ulliel of "A Very Long Engagement") hunting down and sadistically killing his former captors. Ulliel is about as scary as a beefed-up Crispin Glover and the generally excellent Rhys Ifans ("Enduring Love") is disappointing as his chief tormentor. Webber's deliberately choppy flashbacks are the film's high point.
Extras: Commentary by Webber; unrated material; production featurettes; deleted scenes. (
"THE MISTRESS OF SPICES" (2007)
Paul Mayeda Berges makes his directing debut on a script co-written with his wife and frequent collaborator, Gurinder Chadha ("Bend It Like Beckham"), again mining the culture clash between India and the West. The straight-to-DVD release stars Aishwarya Rai ("Bride & Prejudice") as Tilo, an Indian emigre operating a Bay Area spice shop mostly to try to do magical, spice-fueled good deeds for her customers. Enter hunkily scruffy biker-architect Dylan McDermott, who makes Tilo question the various romance-hindering rules of personal conduct laid out for her by a mystical mentor back home. This is romance novel fluff, but Rai is radiant, and McDermott tosses in an occasional knowing, charming leer that gives the pervading frilliness some needed dirtying-up.
Extras: Blink-and-you'll-miss-it production featurette. (Genius Products, $19.95; available now)
"THE JOHN CLEESE COMEDY COLLECTION" (2007)
This three-disc set offers a glimpse of some of the '60s and '70s mischief Cleese got up to outside of Monty Python and "Fawlty Towers." The skit showcase "How to Irritate People" is an amusing primer in just that, highlighted by bits like airline pilots Cleese and Graham Chapman punking passengers. "The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It" gives the Inspector Clouseau treatment to Sherlock Holmes's descendant, while Cleese riffs on, yes, Chekhov in the comic "Romance With a Double Bass." (White Star, $29.99)
Music DVD | Joan Anderman
Cramped, amped, rough, and rowdy
The proto-alt-rock trio Dinosaur Jr. formed in 1983 in Amherst, spent six years delivering an abusive and highly influential fusion of noise and melody, and then splintered into feuding factions. Guitarist J Mascis kicked bassist Lou Barlow out of the band. Barlow launched a public Mascis-bashing campaign (as well as Sebadoh and Folk Implosion ). Drummer Murph eventually relocated and left no forwarding address.
No one imagined the members of Dinosaur Jr. would ever stand together on a stage, let alone jumpstart their collective career. But reunite the band did, in 2005, defying both the years and the bad blood with a string of killer live shows including a pair in Cambridge that were filmed for a DVD. (The group also released an album of new material, " Beyond," earlier this month.)
"Dinosaur Jr.: Live in the Middle East" (2007) is a bit of a misnomer. While much of the performance footage -- spanning 18 songs from the group's first three albums -- was shot downstairs at the Middle East in Central Square, the action later shifts to Irving Plaza in New York. If Dinosaur Jr. was trying to lasso the feel of the early days, or buoy the idea that neither their sound nor their ideals have changed, mission accomplished at the Middle East.
It is, for better and for worse, the ultimate basement club. Mascis, Barlow, and Murph are crammed between their amps, the low, dingy ceiling is in every washed-out shot, roadies are constantly darting about the stage fixing problems, and the club's notoriously rough sound is, well, rough -- the ideal setting, one could argue, for the group's tuneful squall. Arrange to have a beer spilled on you while watching and it will be a thoroughly authentic experience.
The sound is slicker and the visuals improve with a change of venue, but something is lost, too. For a real treat surf over to the extras, which include a brief but seriously rowdy performance of "Chunks" at last year's All Tomorrow's Parties festival in the U K. Other special features include the proverbial gushing commentary from Important People (Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore, Mike Watt, Steve Albini, Kevin Shields, and -- inexplicably -- actor Matt Dillon ), as well as a band interview at WXPN's World Cafe studios. (
Foreign DVD | Wesley Morris
A road trip through Arab-Israeli conflict
As things in Gaza seem to worsen daily, Amos Gitai's 2006 movie, "Free Zone," underscores a crucial, if simple, part of the problem. Neither side is listening. His film is a road flick that crams the Israel-Palestine situation into a car. A former architect, Gitai has put a lot of thought into how to imply some of the conflict's complexities without directly defining the politics. Those are in the air. But, really, they should be on the ground. And so "Free Zone" is a minor movie on a major subject, a drama with an almost unbearable lightness.
Gitai's players are women who represent the recent situation's three principal sides: Rebecca (Natalie Portman), a young American who's just broken up with her boyfriend; her Israeli livery driver, Hanna (Han a Laszlo); and, later, Leila (Hiam Abbass), the Palestinian whose boss owes Hanna money. Telling this story as a somewhat whimsical ladies-first parable is inspired, though not always convincing. That strategy requires either more magic or more realism.
Gitai's movies (among them 1999's "Kadosh" and 2004's "Promised Land" ) have tirelessly chronicled modern Israel for three decades. With The flashbacks laid over current scenes that force the past to coexist with the present, "Free Zone" is his most impressionistic outing. It lingers between didacticism and drama. Sometimes the tutorial bears philosophical fruit.
It's possible that Gitai is trying to have some fun and, to some extent, his sense of folly is to his credit. It's a sign of hope. But it's also a joke on hope. In fact, a final bickering sequence between Hanna and Leila is so good you don't know why Gitai bothered with solemnity in the first place: It's an amusing, deceptively critical sleight of hand where the comedy speaks volumes about the current tragedy. (New Yorker, $29.95)
ALSO THIS WEEK
"10 MPH" (2006)
A pair of 20-somethings chuck their jobs to travel cross-country from Seattle to Boston -- by two-wheeled Segway -- in this amusingly offbeat documentary.
Extras: Commentary by Segwists/filmmakers Hunter Weeks and Josh Caldwell; deleted scenes. (Spinning Blue, $19.98)
REISSUES
"SCARFACE" (1932)
Long before there was Tony Montana, there was Paul Muni's Prohibition-bred Tony Camonte, the ruthlessly aspiring kingpin of Howard Hawks's gangster classic. Howard Hughes produced the pre-code picture, whose influence extends throughout the genre's history; in fact, Martin Scorsese just referenced it in behind-the-scenes material on "The Departed." Companion releases include Cecil B. DeMille's "Unconquered," with Gary Cooper, and the screwball comedy "No Man of Her Own," with Clark Gable and Carole Lombard.
Extras: Alternate ending on "Scarface." (Universal, $14.98 each; available now)
"PRINCE OF THE CITY" (1981)
Treat Williams is a New York narcotics cop conflicted by his part in a police corruption investigation in director Sidney Lumet's true story adaptation. Overlong, but powerful.
Extras: New featurette on the story behind the story. (Warner, $19.97; available now)
"HEAVY PETTING" (1989)
The '50s sexuality police take a ribbing in director Obie Benz's freewheeling documentary, which intercuts personal reminiscences from Allen Ginsberg, Sandra Bernhard, David Byrne and others with hopelessly out-of-step sex education films.
Extras: Filmmaker interview; extended confessionals; old-school informational films in full. (Docurama, $29.95)
"THE 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN" (2005)
Steve Carell's big-screen breakout gets a re-release heavy on new deleted scenes -- more than 15 minutes' worth -- and comic musings from filmmaker Judd Apatow. (The disc includes a coupon for "Knocked Up," Apatow's latest.) Oh, and heads up, "Heavy Petting" fans: you'll also find, yes, even more sex-ed films. (Universal, $26.98; available now)
FOREIGN
"COMEDY OF POWER" (2007)
The latest featherweight entertainment from Claude Chabrol stars Isabelle Huppert as a judge investigating a ring of corrupt corporate titans. These men are adolescents who seem to get a thrill out of trying to outfox an imperious woman. The movie, meanwhile, can't commit to a genre, let alone a complete idea. Yet there is a certain wisdom in its frivolous air.
Extras: Making-of featurette. (Koch Lorber, $29.98)
WESLEY MORRIS
TELEVISION
"THE NAKED CIVIL SERVANT" (1975)
John Hurt stars as gay cult figure Quentin Crisp in this controversial adaptation of Crisp's autobiography. A fascinating look at an attempt to live an open life in a closed-minded society.
Extras: Commentary by Hurt and crew; Crisp featurette. (BBC Video, $19.98)
"RAWHIDE": THE SECOND SEASON, VOLUME 1 (1959-60)
Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Yates and the boys are back, rollin'-rollin'-rollin' out another set of 16 episodes. (Paramount, $54.99)
Capsules are written by Globe correspondent Tom Russo and titles are in stores Tuesday unless otherwise specified. 
