DVD Releases
Director's hazy memories are sharply antiwar
In a Cannes Q&A included as one of the extras on the animated documentary “Waltz With Bashir’’ (2008), writer-director Ari Folman has a blunt rationale for his unusual approach to revisiting Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Folman wanted to send an antiwar message to teens in particular, and he thought a straight documentary would be too boring to grab their attention. Think of it as a healthier spin on the Joe Camel tack: hook ’em with a cartoon, but an R-rated cartoon that just says no. The visuals certainly are an inspired fit for the dramatic arc of the story, in which Folman realizes he can’t recall much of his time as a young soldier in Beirut, and starts going around talking with army buddies and others to stir his memory. (The biggest gap involves the notorious massacre by Christian Phalangists at a pair of civilian refugee camps after the assassination of Bashir Gemayel, Lebanon’s president.) The spare, sometimes garish animation works perfectly to convey wartime experiences turned hazily surreal by trauma. Extras: Folman’s commentary and a short featurette offer personal notes, but devote more time to the creative challenge of animating the film. Folman marvels at things still coming back to him even after the movie’s release, like the thought that his tranquil hometown was a 20-minute helicopter ride from the front. In a characteristic display of easygoing humor, he recalls laughing with his animators - all eight of them - when they caught a screening of “Finding Nemo’’ and saw that
DRAMA
MY DINNER WITH ANDRÉ (1981)
One of our favorite ramblings in the famously extended dialogue between co-writers Wallace Shawn (inset) and André Gregory: the idea that New York is actually a prison of New Yorkers’ own making. Now, was that truer when Louis Malle directed the film, offering a fleeting glimpse of Shawn on a subway car that was more taggers’ Krylon than steel - or today, when Times Square is a franchise theme park? Extras: Gregory and Shawn each spend 30 minutes reminiscing with “Margot at the Wedding’’ filmmaker Noah Baumbach, remembering, among other things, whittling down 1,500 pages of transcribed conversation into a script. (Criterion, $39.95)
FANTASY
INKHEART (2009)
Brendan Fraser (inset), director Iain Softley (“The Wings of the Dove’’), and a nifty British supporting cast team for an adaptation of Cornelia Funke’s YA meta-novel about fictional characters being read off the page and into the real world. What could feel like a Toontown convergence of public domain creations isn’t quite all that - we get an Oz flying monkey or two. Paul Bettany does nice work as a brooding fire juggler prone to burn his friends - figuratively, anyway - in his desperation to get back to fantasyland. Extras: On Blu-ray, Funke leads cast and crew in improvising an oral story. (Warner, $28.98; Blu-ray, $35.99)
ANIMATION
TOM & JERRY: THE CHUCK JONES COLLECTION (2009)
Legendary Warner Brothers animator Jones brought his extensive Looney Tunes experience across town for a fresh round of cat-and-mouse games with MGM’s signature characters, released theatrically from 1963-67. You can see Jones’s Road Runner sensibility at work throughout the 34 shorts, including the various over-the-precipice gags in the set-opening “Penthouse Mouse.’’ (The package comes with the predictable “intended for the adult collector’’ disclaimer, lest anyone forget who begat Itchy and Scratchy.) A companion release, “Tom and Jerry’s Greatest Chases, Vol. 2,’’ tracks their mayhem to its ’40s origins. Extras: A pair of featurettes on Jones. (Warner, $26.99)
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CONFESSIONS OF A SHOPAHOLIC (2009)
Isla Fisher (above) shines as a materialistic New York magazine newbie in a slight but fun adaptation of the Sophie Kinsella novels. Directed by P.J. Hogan (“My Best Friend’s Wedding’’). Extras: Bloopers and deleted scenes. (Touchstone, $32.99; single-disc edition, $29.99; Blu-ray, $39.99)
THE PINK PANTHER 2 (2009)
Steve Martin is back as nouveau Clouseau, bumbling around a Paris that looks suspiciously like Boston. Extras: Gag reel; with Blu-ray, a disc of animated “Panther’’ shorts. (MGM, $29.98; Blu-ray, $39.99)
LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD (1961)
Alain Resnais’s murmury, ambiguous exploration of the connection between a man and a woman wandering a gloomy chateau plays as mesmerizing or impenetrable, depending on your patience level. Extras: New audio interview with Resnais; retrospective documentary. (Criterion, $39.95; Blu-ray, $39.95)
DR. STRANGELOVE (1964) If you’re the sort of purist who cries “sacre bleu’’ at the thought of a Peter Sellers-less “Pink Panther’’ (see above), you’ll appreciate the Blu-ray debut of Sellers’s triple-shot for Stanley Kubrick. (