New Releases | Tom Russo
Pre-CGI, the thrill of harrowing chariot races
Rome didn't crumble in a day. Still, director Anthony Mann and producer Samuel Bronston had good reason to think that they could compellingly rein in history's sprawl with "The Fall of the Roman Empire" (1964). The pair had enjoyed success just a few years earlier with their Charlton Heston-Sophia Loren Spanish history epic "El Cid," and they had reunited much of their team here, Loren included. But despite the lavish treatment the hugely costly three-hour film is receiving in its DVD debut, it didn't make an epic impression on moviegoers at the time. It's not that the material is too unwieldy; "Gladiator" powerfully covered much of the same historical ground. In "Fall," Heston's "Ben-Hur" costar Stephen Boyd is cast in the pivotal role of Livius, the general whom ailing Caesar Marcus Aurelius (Alec Guinness) names as his successor ahead of scheming son Commodus (Christopher Plummer). Loren, meanwhile, is top billed for a supporting role as imperial daughter Lucilla. One Bronston biographer notes in the DVD's well-done retrospective that when the production couldn't get Heston for Livius - the star reportedly refused to work with Loren again - Mann opted for Boyd because "he fits the costumes." And he's about as animated as an ancient marble bust, with the romantic subplot between Livius and Lucilla making for particularly slow viewing. Guinness, though, is terrific as a benevolent leader of men, especially when pitching his ideal of Pax Romana to a massive army of pre-CGI extras. A harrowing chariot race between Livius and Commodus along wooded mountainside cart trails - and then off-road - is also essential viewing. As Bronston's son and a biographer note in commentary, audiences might have dismissed this as a "Ben-Hur" retread, but the terrain is thrillingly different. (
"THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY" (2007)
Artist and sometime filmmaker Julian Schnabel drew a Best Director nomination for his expansion on the memoir of late French magazine editor Jean-Dominique Bauby. A victim of "locked-in syndrome," Bauby astonishingly found a way to dictate his book despite being left paralyzed and virtually unable to communicate by a stroke in his early 40s. The French-language film is tough to watch twice, but the DVD does offer an opportunity to digest the stunning lead performance by Mathieu Amalric ("Munich") and more fully appreciate the supporting cast's big moments. One standout: Marie-Josée Croze, as one of Bauby's therapists, tearfully realizing the depths of his despair.
Extras: Schnabel supplies commentary, and a brief featurette also has much to say. The filmmakers knew from the outset that the story's powerful claustrophobia had a balancing element: Bauby's imagination. In the film, says Schnabel, "Whatever comes to this guy's mind is possible." (Miramax, $29.99)
"ROMULUS, MY FATHER" (2007)
Pain is conveyed through expression and action rather than dialogue in this subtle import, in which a young boy in '60s Australia farm country (Kodi Smit-McPhee, playing future philosopher Raimond Gaita) faces the difficult relationship between his father (Eric Bana) and troubled, straying mother (Franka Potente). The film actually manages to evoke childhood confusion by not over-explaining its characters' trials. Potente is clearly a post-partum case, but is she also manic depressive? The film eschews even helpful exposition but overall marks an assured feature directing debut by Richard Roxburgh (best known for playing the duke in "Moulin Rouge" and other character roles).
Extras: Homespun featurette. (Magnolia, 26.98; available now)
"27 DRESSES" (2008)
Katherine Heigl further spins off her "Grey's Anatomy" success as an incurable romantic hopelessly devoted to her oblivious boss (Edward Burns) but attracted despite herself to a cynical reporter (James Marsden, "Enchanted"). The movie is more even-keeled than Heigl's hugely overrated "Knocked Up," but it's all very predictable, right down to a painful "Pretty Woman" video sequence showcasing all 27 getups. Still, every once in a while, we get a little edge, as when Heigl drops an amusingly inappropriate F-bomb. If only there were more of this, and fewer dresses.
Extras: Production featurettes, including one looking at, fittingly, those zany dress designs. (Fox, $29.98; Blu-ray, $39.98)
Television DVD | Saul Austerlitz
A Jewish sitcom, long before 'Seinfeld'
Echoing the journeys of so many Jewish families after World War II, the Goldbergs left the big city - in their case, East Tremont Avenue, the Bronx - for the wide-open spaces of the suburbs, mingling with a mostly unfamiliar gentile world. Unlike their counterparts, however, the Goldbergs existed nowhere other than in the imaginations of millions of fans. Having begun life as a highly popular radio serial, "The Goldbergs" made the transition to television in 1949, with the medium still in its infancy, and this two-DVD set shows it. The picture quality is iffy, and sound often falls out of sync.
Nonetheless, these 10 episodes (from before actor Philip Loeb was blacklisted during the Red Scare) are a remarkable document of early television. At a time when the (mostly Jewish) Hollywood moguls, deathly afraid of telling overtly Jewish stories, were taking tentative steps toward Jewish content (with films like "Crossfire" and "Gentleman's Agreement"), "The Goldbergs" was unashamedly, unabashedly Jewish. This is most apparent in the Yiddish-accented inflections of Molly Goldberg (series creator Gertrude Berg) and her family, which often result in unintentional hilarity: "Should I boil you or fry you?" Uncle David (the brilliant Eli Mintz) asks at the breakfast table, and Molly tells her daughter "go and hang yourself in your closet" when she purchases a new dress.
When the Goldbergs first arrive in suburbia, the mood is bittersweet, with Molly nostalgic for New York. She remakes the town in her image, its whitebread ennui rendered indelibly, hilariously Jewish: "I have to answer my yoo-hoo, excuse me," Molly tells her family when Mrs. Kerry yodels for attention. Family happiness on "The Goldbergs" is threatened weekly by Molly's enthusiasms for poetry, for psychoanalysis, for her daughter's singing career, but 25 minutes always bring about the resolution of all conflicts, and the comforting ring of familial laughter. "The Goldbergs" is a progenitor of so many of the family sitcoms that followed it, but the series remains remarkable for the loving attention it offers to the details of its Jewish family: the gefilte fish and the kugel, the immigrant malapropisms, the squabbles over money and schoolwork, the tension between shtetl-bred parents and Americanized children. Like a classic sitcom that followed in its wake, "Seinfeld," "The Goldbergs" made Jews quintessentially American.
No bonus features (Timeless Media Group, $7.98)
Indie DVD | Wesley Morris
A complicated portrait of being old
When Heather (Lauren Ambrose), the cute young grad student in "Starting Out in the Evening," asks the literary warhorse Leonard Schiller (Frank Langella, above) whether he'll help with her thesis on his books, he says no. He's old. He's busy. Who'd care? Leonard's four novels have been out of print and out of fashion for years. Heather persists, and he gradually succumbs to her, intellectually and sexually.
Heather isn't a stalker so much as an intensely ambitious, overeager flatterer: "I have under-30 disease," she says. Discreetly, Leonard brings himself to enjoy the excitement of the relationship. The movie, meanwhile, is a reasonably complicated portrait of being old and still desirable to a pert young go-getter.
Adapted from Brian Morton's novel by Fred Parnes and the director Andrew Wagner, "Starting Out in the Evening" is a gentle collection of scenes that work and scenes that don't. Almost half this movie is devoted to Leonard's unfulfilled daughter, Ariel (Lili Taylor).
Time with her feels so empty because, as a character, Leonard is so rich - and because Langella's performance is so smart (the Boston Society of Film Critics gave him its best actor award last year). Leonard is an imposing figure of guilt and disappointment. Walking the streets of New York speaking like the professorial gentleman he is, this tall, terribly proper man seems like a dinosaur. Ambrose overplays Heather's ambition, but Langella absorbs her eagerness, so his reluctance to be soothed or riveted by her ego strokes seems just right.
Extras: director's commentary; trailer (Lionsgate, $27.98)
ALSO THIS WEEK
"BERNARD AND DORIS" (2008)
Susan Sarandon and Ralph Fiennes are a standout odd couple as tobacco heiress Doris Duke and her gay butler, Bernard Lafferty, a cipher who shared his secrets with her and wound up in charge of her billions when she died. Interesting work by Fiennes in particular, as he and director Bob Balaban speculate that Lafferty was a well-meaning eccentric, and not the opportunist many believed.
Extras: Commentary by Balaban; featurette on Duke. (HBO, $26.98)
"HOW SHE MOVE" (2008)
Hard-steppin' natural dance talents go at it on the mean streets of (who knew?) Toronto in this energetic musical affair. Newcomer Rutina Wesley helps sell the rote story about a city kid looking to get out, but realizing on some level that's a little cold. Keyshia Cole cameos as herself.
Extras: Rehearsal footage. (Paramount, $29.99)
REISSUE
"SALUDOS AMIGOS" (1942)
"THREE CABALLEROS" (1944)
This double-feature re-release follows Donald Duck and Goofy south of the border for a series of Latin-themed escapades. A bit too loosely woven and esoteric to hold the kids' interest fully, but a light, interesting historical document, and the start of a lower-key era in
Extras: Bonus shorts. (Disney, $19.99)
FOREIGN
"THE RED BALLOON" (1957)
Director Albert Lamorisse's pure, beloved short about a boy trailing a stray balloon through Paris makes its debut on DVD. Lamorisse's lesser-known "White Mane" gets a companion release. (Criterion, $14.95 each)
TELEVISION
"I SPY": SEASONS 1-3 (1965-68)
Bill Cosby and Robert Culp show the lighter side of the espionage biz in individual season sets covering the series' entire three-year run. (Image, $19.98 each)
"TIM AND ERIC AWESOME SHOW, GREAT JOB!": SEASON ONE (2007)
This Cartoon Network foray into live action plays like "Kids in the Hall" put together for the 3 a.m. TV audience, on a budget that makes cable access look extravagant. David Cross effortlessly steals the bizarre show with a cameo as a lusty pizza guy.
Extras: Commentaries; deleted and extended scenes. (Warner, $19.97; available now)
"INTELLIGENCE": SEASON ONE (2005-07)
Canadian TV's answer to dual-perspective fare like "The Wire" is decently crafted, although you'll easily take greatest interest in familiar face Matt Frewer ("Max Headroom") playing a morally squirrelly police op. His boss, he grouses, is "too soft" on nasty Vancouver crime. (Again, who knew?) From the creator of "Da Vinci's Inquest."
Extras: Behind-the-scenes clips. (Acorn Media, $59.99)
Capsules are written by Tom Russo and titles are in stores Tuesday unless otherwise specified.
