New Releases

''SMART PEOPLE'': The film stars (from left) Dennis Quaid, Ellen Page, Thomas Haden Church, and Ashton Holmes.

Just too smart for its own good

You can pretty much guess from the title of "Smart People" (2008) what it is that you're in for: either an ironically lowbrow comedy, or an ironic commentary on intellectuals' occasional tendency to behave stupidly. Director Noam Murro and former MIT teacher-turned-writer Mark Jude Poirier have made the latter. As Poirier sums up in bonus materials, this is a story of "these really highly educated people trying to make their way through the world - but they're just emotional idiots." Dennis Quaid channels a bit of Jack Nicholson in "As Good As It Gets" in playing Lawrence Wetherhold, a widowed, pompously abrasive lit prof who's got a curmudgeonly clone in his teenage daughter, Vanessa (Ellen Page), and a polar opposite in his freeloading adopted brother, Chuck (Thomas Haden Church). When Lawrence suffers a comic accident and can't drive for months, he ends up forced to rely on Chuck; forced to endure Chuck's dubious influence on Vanessa; and forced to acknowledge that his ER doctor, Janet (Sarah Jessica Parker), just might be someone to help him rediscover love. Church gives the broadest but most fully realized performance, making his hang-loose stoner not wise, exactly, but somehow clear-eyed enough to recognize that Vanessa needs friendship, Lawrence needs affection, etc. In some respects, the story, like its characters, is too smart for its own good. The idea that Lawrence is too self-absorbed to bother asking about Janet's background is a plot point - but that info sure would help to explain what these two are doing together.

Extras: In a 15-minute collection of interviews, Poirier rightly credits Church for helping to tone down his character so that he'd seem like a goof, not a pervert. Murro and Poirier also supply commentary. (Miramax, $29.99; Blu-ray, $34.99)

"BRAND UPON THE BRAIN!" (2006)

Canadian cult filmmaker Guy Maddin, recently drawing strong reviews for his cracked pseudo-memoir "My Winnipeg," offers more from what he calls "my 'Me Trilogy'," which also includes the confessional "Cowards Bend the Knee" (2003). This time, we get a surreal look at the adult "Guy" (actor Erik Steffen Maahs) returning to the lighthouse/orphanage where his Bates-y mother raised him and a brood of foster kids. As Guy fulfills his mother's dying wish that the structure be covered with fresh coats of paint - a deliberately bald repressed-memory metaphor - the extended flashbacks to psychologically confusing bygone times flow. True to form, Maddin styles the film as an obsessively rendered arthouse remix of silent cinema aesthetics, right down to intertitles like, "Mother's turpentine bath - to wash the sin away."

Extras: While the movie was released with throwback narration by Isabella Rossellini, special engagements also featured Laurie Anderson, Crispin Glover, Eli Wallach, and Maddin himself reading the narration live - all included as optional audio here. There's also interview material with the low-key Maddin. (Criterion, $39.95)

"JOY HOUSE" (1964)

In this slight but intermittently diverting international toss-off from French director René Clément, Alain Delon is a hunky hustler on the run who finds a twisty sort of sanctuary as chauffeur and boy toy to Lola Albright and Jane Fonda. Delon is somewhat handcuffed by his English-language performance, but Fonda, then all of 27, runs terrifically hot and cold.

Extras: French-language audio track. (Koch Lorber, $24.98; available now)

"MASTERS OF HORROR": SEASON 2 (2006-07)

This mixed-bag cable anthology earns a severed-thumbs-up for presentation, anyway, as it delivers its latest 13 episodes in creepy (yet functional!) skull packaging. One tale comes from director Brad Anderson, who mined Danvers State Hospital for some chills with "Session 9" a few years back. Here, he offers "Sounds Like," about a call center supervisor (Chris Bauer, "Third Watch") with a tragic past and maddeningly sensitive hearing. Does the slushing noise coming from his wife's eyes during REM sleep qualify as henpecking?

Extras: Commentaries and interview material from Anderson and other filmmakers. (Anchor Bay, $86.97; available now)

Music DVD | Mark Feeney

Live and lowdown at the Garden

"I Got the Feelin': James Brown in the '60s" consists of three discs: "The Night James Brown Saved Boston," a VH1 documentary about Brown's Boston Garden concert the night after Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination; the concert itself as it was broadcast over WGBH (that's right, 'GBH); and another concert, "Man to Man - James Brown Live at the Apollo Theater in 1968."

To truly grasp the through-the-looking-glass quality of the Garden concert, it helps if you know the sense of absolute otherness that Brown's music had then for most white Americans. It helps even more if you ever listened to William Pierce during his nearly 40 years as announcer of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. To hear the parched frostiness of that voice utter the words "We're going to do something rather wild for television" and then refer to "James Brown and his troupe" (his troupe!), well, it's beyond befuddling.

Brown was scheduled to perform on April 5. When King was shot, on April 4, rioting broke out in some 200 cities. The initial response was to cancel the concert. Then City Councilor Thomas Atkins (who died last June) realized that would only make the situation worse. In an inspired move, it was decided to televise the concert in hopes that prospective rioters would stay home to watch. Boston suffered minimal violence.

The documentary (which is being screened this afternoon and the next two Sundays at the Museum of Fine Arts) is well done, if overlong - as well as weighed down by the world-class windbaggery of Cornel West. In contrast, his fellow talking head Al Sharpton seems positively cogent.

The concert is what matters. It's bizarre to hear Brown describe Mayor Kevin White as "a swingin' cat," and impressive to see him calm the crowd when it gets out of hand. What's indelible is his music.

Some technical difficulties aside, WGBH shot the concert very well. Much better, certainly, than the Apollo concert was shot. That filming violated the First Law of Entertainment Thermodynamics: You never, ever cut away from James Brown when he's performing.

Extras: Brown's legendary "T.A.M.I. Show" appearance, two mid-'60s songs from Paris concerts, additional interview footage with talking heads from the documentary (Shout! Factory, $39.98)

Nature DVD | Mark Feeney

For this scientist, his work is his bond

Harvard's E.O. Wilson is a towering figure in contemporary biology. An entomologist by training, he's the founder of sociobiology (the application of evolutionary theory to social behavior) and the leading proponent of the idea of "biophilia," or mankind's instinctive bond with other living things on the planet.

Wilson's achievements and influence make him a worthy subject of study. His being a born teacher, highly articulate, with a warm presence and avuncular smile, makes him a natural for a television documentary - like "Lord of the Ants," which ran on PBS' "Nova" in May.

Don't be put off by the egregious title or the script's up-close-and-too-personal way of referring throughout to "Ed Wilson." In the course of just 54 minutes, the documentary covers an impressive amount of ground. There's Wilson's early work on ants. ("They're easy to find, they're easy to study, they're so interesting," he says. "I honestly cannot understand why most people don't study ants.") Sociobiology is lucidly treated, as is the heated controversy it set off. Wilson, whom we see doing fieldwork in the Dominican Republic, the Florida Keys, and New York's Central Park, explains biophilia. And we learn of his newest project, the online Encyclopedia of Life, which seeks to document the 1.8 million species of living organisms known to exist on the planet. "We're too near the end of what's left of the natural world," Wilson remarks at one point. Such words are all the more alarming coming from someone with such a calm, reassuring manner. Harrison Ford narrates. (WGBH Video, $24.95)

ALSO THIS WEEK

"THE AMERICAN MALL" (2008)

MTV's just-airing foray into "High School Musical" territory (from some of the same producers and crew, no less) gets an extended-cut DVD release.

Extras: Director and cast commentaries; how-to choreography segment. (Paramount, $19.99)

"WATCHING THE DETECTIVES" (2008)

Even one of our favorite up-and-comers, Cillian Murphy ("The Wind That Shakes the Barley"), can't do much with this straight-to-DVD romantic comedy. Hipster video store proprietor Murphy only daydreams that life is like the movies - until offbeat Lucy Liu pulls him into a real-life adventure. Written and directed by Broken Lizard comedy trouper Paul Soter. (Genius Products, $19.95)

"YES TO RUNNING: BILL HARLEY LIVE" (2008)

You and your kids have logged countless miles listening to Harley on road trips. Here, you can put a face to the voice, as the standout, Providence-based singer-storyteller performs on stage. Includes staples such as "Mom and the Radio" and "You're in Trouble" and the new "The Ballad of Dirty Joe."

Extras: Documentary; behind-the-scenes interview. (Round River Records, $14.99)

TELEVISION

"THE WIRE": THE COMPLETE FIFTH SEASON (2008)

TV's top cop drama (in terms of quality, anyway) puts in its pension papers, taking a look along the way at Baltimore's newspaper scene, which we of course appreciate.

Extras: Series creator and Baltimore Sun vet David Simon supplies commentary, and headline's a media-focused documentary. (HBO, $59.99)

"THE LOVE BOAT": SEASON ONE, VOLUME TWO (1978)

The Pacific Princess makes another run with guest stars including Audrey Meadows, Leslie Nielsen, Bob Crane, and Pearl Bailey.

Extras: The series' third and final pilot-movie tuneup, 1977's "The New Love Boat." (Paramount, $39.99)

REISSUES

"I LOVE THE '80s" DVD SERIES

Viacom gives its corporate synergy muscles a workout worthy of Richard Simmons tackiness, hefting a crateful of titles from its Paramount vaults and collectively branding them under its VH1 talking-heads flashback franchise. Whatever - it's your chance to pick up a new copy of "Ferris Bueller," "Beverly Hills Cop," "Fatal Attraction," and more.

Extras: The same four-track sampler CD is included with every movie. Get your Erasure fix here. (Paramount, $14.99 each; available now)

"OUTFOXED: RUPERT MURDOCH'S WAR ON JOURNALISM" (2004)

As the election year din continues to build, documentarian Robert Greenwald ("Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price") strives to make his voice heard with a re-release of his vivisection of the Fox News approach to political coverage.

Extras: Greenwald's "Fox Attacks!" viral video shorts. (The Disinformation Company, $14.95; available now)

Capsules are written by Tom Russo and titles are in stores Tuesday unless otherwise specified.