''INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL'': Harrison Ford, with Shia LaBeouf and Karen Allen.
DVD Report
''INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL'': Harrison Ford, with Shia LaBeouf and Karen Allen.
October 12, 2008
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New Releases | Tom Russo
'Indiana Jones' and the last DVD (for now...)
As producer Frank Marshall reminds us at the start of the video production diary accompanying "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" (2008), "Steven [Spielberg] really wanted this movie to be a surprise for the audience when they got to the movie theater." But now that the endlessly scrutinized sequel has enjoyed its run in multiplexes and is arriving on DVD, all can be told. Sort of. The 12-part, 80-minute diary anchors the package's second disc, and goes into archeologically obsessive detail about the film's locations, production design, costumes, and props. There are behind-the-scenes shots of Harrison Ford getting dropped, yanked, and otherwise put to the test by stunt wires, as well as thorough breakdowns of set pieces such as Ford and costar Shia LaBeouf's Harley chase near Yale. (Funny that the movie's action highlight should feature Ford in professorial tweed, sans fedora or a stitch of his signature wardrobe - but shooting his young sidekick a crotchety glare cribbed straight from Sean Connery in "Last Crusade.") On the feature disc, though, Spielberg stubbornly sticks to his policy of not doing commentary tracks - giving fans a whole new lobbying campaign to fixate on now that Spielberg, Ford, and George Lucas have finally satisfied the years-long clamoring for a fourth installment. Among the material that benefits from the clips-and-soundbites approach is a look at how Indy's past entrances compare to his latest, a mischievous bit of icon deflating in which he turns up shoved in a sedan trunk by Russki dominatrix Cate Blanchett and her Commie brigade. A standalone featurette on the project's lengthy development doesn't discuss the role of players like Frank Darabont ("The Shawshank Redemption") in the script's evolution, but Spielberg admits that "Independence Day" did put a slight crimp in the original Indy-and-aliens plan. (Paramount, $39.99; Blu-ray, $39.99; "Indiana Jones: Complete Adventure Collection," $89.99)
"CHAPLIN" (1992)
This reissue of director Richard Attenborough's sentimental biopic is billed as a 15th anniversary edition, but it sure feels like a distributor saying, Hey, Robert Downey Jr. has all that "Iron Man" and "Tropic Thunder" heat right now - let's dust off that Oscar bid of his. Whatever the occasion, Downey's astonishing work mimicking Charlie Chaplin is certainly worth revisiting. If only the film were as strong overall, and didn't rely on clunky expository devices to shuttle us from place to place in Chaplin's life: his hard-luck youth, his meteoric rise, his politics, his scandals and subsequent exile.
Extras: Downey doesn't show for a modest collection of featurettes on the film and Chaplin's legacy, but Attenborough is on hand, comparing Downey's immersion in the role to Ben Kingsley's as Gandhi. A two-minute vintage home movie by future journalist Alistair Cooke shows Chaplin at play on his boat, spoofing celebrity hairstyles with a deck mop. (Lionsgate, $19.98)
"CSI: CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION" THE EIGHTH SEASON (2007-08)
Between the original series and its various spin-offs, it seems some "CSI" season bows on a new DVD set every other week. This one stands apart, though, both for the extras and the dramatic, this-job'll-kill-ya exits of cast members Jorja Fox and (apparently) Gary Dourdan. Guest director William Friedkin supplies commentary for his episode, and he and longtime pal William Petersen marvel at how a decent chase can be cranked out in two days for TV, as opposed to six weeks for their mid-'80s thriller "To Live and Die in L.A." Fox also turns up for a 15-minute featurette on her sign-off, making the rumors of her bristly departure seem greatly exaggerated. (Paramount, $84.98)
"HALLOWEEN" (1978/2007)
Thirty years after Michael Myers came home, John Carpenter's slasher classic is reissued yet again, this time in a six-disc set complete with a miniature Shatner mask and a couple of the sequels. More effort goes into scaring up additional business for last year's remake, newly packaged in a three-disc set that includes director Rob Zombie's 4 1/2-hour production documentary. (Original, Anchor Bay, $89.97. Remake,
Foreign DVD | Wesley Morris
Daily doldrums and constant concern
"Beaufort" is a solid war movie whose Israeli soldiers eagerly await permission to go home. It's set at the title outpost, a historic castle, during the South Lebanon conflict not long before Israel pulled out in 2000.
A foreign-language Oscar nominee, the film forgoes easy heroism to consider the shock of war as it registers across the faces of a young commander and his largely untested troops. Seeing one of his best friends wounded, he's too overwhelmed to lift him to safety. The film is split between quiet and noise: The soldiers keep a frustrated watch for Hezbollah missiles, which crash around them often enough to keep them on edge. Their downtime is spent in debate.
Mired in the daily doldrums of guard duty, the film asks all-purpose questions about how much a soldier is permitted to think for himself. Does the unit rebuild damaged areas of the post? Does it retaliate against attackers? Does it cut its losses and leave? How long should the men tolerate sitting around? How long until sitting around gets them killed?
"Beaufort" is based on Ron Leshem's novel "If There Is a Heaven." Leshem wrote the script with director Joseph Cedar, who tries pitching the movie on almost-existential terms. The appeal of this material to Cedar seems partly the opportunity to refine his technical skills. There are, for instance, some lovely trips through the tight bunker tunnels via tracking shots that recall Stanley Kubrick's "Paths of Glory."
Extras: deleted scenes, making-of featurette, trailer (Kino International, $29.95)
Documentary DVD | Ty Burr
Abu Ghraib revisited
In "Standard Operating Procedure," Errol Morris gives the US soldiers of Abu Ghraib back their humanity. Why would he want to? We've looked upon the face of PFC Lynndie England. We know she's a monster.
One of the movie's points, though, is that we shouldn't make the same mistake she did. "Standard Operating Procedure" features interviews with five of the seven soldiers indicted on charges of prisoner abuse. Against the soldiers' finger-pointing and weary admissions of guilt, Morris places the photographic evidence of Abu Ghraib - a tidal wave of data that almost swamps the movie. Nearly every humiliation possible to be visited upon a human being is here, at one point stitched together in a sort of heinous flip-book timeline.
Morris is out to indict the entire US military intelligence structure by examining what it does to its lowest echelon personnel, both before they're busted and after. He doesn't forgive the men and women of the 372d Military Police Company, but he is curious about what the pressures of isolation, fear, groupthink, and rank can do to an uneducated young person in the middle of nowhere. "Standard Operating Procedure" takes pains to distinguish between the grunt MPs, who did the actual "questioning," and the shadowy "ghosts" from the CIA who'd swoop in with high-ranking suspects. One of these ended up dead after an interrogation; when Specialist Sabrina Harman took a photo of the body packed in ice, it was she who was prosecuted.
England, too, finally gets her close-up courtesy of Morris's cameras. Five years, prison time, and motherhood have made her face puffier than the avid young torturer-chipmunk of the Abu Ghraib photos. Her eyes are dead, or maybe they're just wised up. She has some excuses for what she did but she still doesn't seem sure why she did it.
You wish Morris had been able to speak with a prisoner or two, as well; in enshrining them as victims, the movie denies them individuality all over again. Still, the movie's a staggering work that traces the rotten blossom of this scandal close to its roots. When an investigator labels the iconic image of an Iraqi prisoner standing on a crate "standard operating procedure" - as opposed to prosecutable criminal abuse - a chill runs through the film. "They weren't doing torture, per se," he says. It's in that bottomless "per se" that we're living as a country today. ($28.96,
Extras: director's commentary, deleted scenes, trailer (Sony, $28.96)
ALSO THIS WEEK "BOY A" (2008)
Andrew Garfield ("Lions for Lambs") is a young man released from the British corrections system after spending his youth locked up for a notorious crime, and now struggling, anonymously and shakily, to move on. Uneven, but occasionally quite moving. (
REISSUES
"A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE" (1974)
Pulling from its box set "John Cassavetes: Five Films," Criterion gives an individual re-release to the director's distinctive portrait of suburban malaise. Cassavetes's noir riff "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie" gets a companion reissue.
Extras: On "Woman," video conversation with actors Gena Rowlands and Peter Falk; 1975 audio interview with Cassavetes; crew commentary. (Criterion, $39.95 each)
"THE NEW WORLD" (2005)
Terrence Malick's mesmerizing vision of life with Pocahontas (Q'orianka Kilcher) and John Smith (Colin Farrell) gets extended treatment with 30 minutes of previously unseen footage. (Warner, $19.97)
"SHORT CUTS" (1993)
Robert Altman's collage of LA by way of Raymond Carver is re-released at a reduced price - and is essential Altman at any price.
Extras: Feature-length production documentary; PBS documentary on Carver; much more. (Criterion, $29.95)
"THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD" (1958)
The swashbuckling adventurer faces the Cyclops and other feature-creatures brought to life by legendary stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen.
Extras: New Harryhausen commentary and interview; retrospective featurettes. (
FOREIGN
"MONGOL" (2007)
Genghis Khan's barbarian rep benefits from a bit of historical revisionism in an Oscar nominee for best foreign language film. (Warner, $27.95; Blu-ray, $35.99)
"AN AUTUMN AFTERNOON" (1962)
Japanese master Yasujiro Ozu signs off with the introspective story of a widower (Chishu Ryu) bidding a melancholy goodbye to his grown and soon-to-be-wed daughter.
Extras: Scholarly commentary and essays. (Criterion, $29.95; available now)
TELEVISION
"THE SARAH SILVERMAN PROGRAM": SEASON TWO, VOLUME ONE (2007)
Silverman brings God along to her high school reunion - and that's the tame stuff.
Extras: Commentary; digital shorts; cast Comic-Con appearance. (Paramount, $26.99)
"THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY": THE COMPLETE THIRD SEASON (1973-74)
Flash back to the days when Danny Bonaduce played a shamelessly exploited pint-size musician, not a self-exploiting reality TV fixture. (Sony, $29.95)
Capsules are written by Tom Russo and titles are in stores Tuesday unless otherwise specified.
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