Theatrical

 

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will undoubtedly sell the most DVDs this coming week, but buyers will have lots of choices including Public Enemies and Julie & Julia, two of the more successful films aimed at older viewers.  There are also a couple of powerful documentaries, one of the most popular TV on DVD sets of the year, and a brilliant anime based on one of the most thrilling manga series of all time.

 

The latest Potter film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was well received by the critics (83% positive on Rotten Tomatoes) who anointed it as the best in the series since Alfonso Cuaron’s Prisoner of Azkaban. It was also a huge hit at the box office where it earned over $300 million.  As J.K. Rowling’s complex fantasy saga nears its climax the young wizards have reached their teenage years, and the Half-Blood Prince reflects their growing maturity with acknowledgements of the increasing role that hormones play in the lives of these adolescents.  The tone is also darkening as the saga nears its powerful climax.  Warner Bros. has made Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince available in three different editions (Single-Disc $28.98, 2-Disc Special Edition $34.98, BD $35.98).  The Blu-ray disc comes with a regular DVD as well as a digital copy and features Warners’ Maximum Movie Mode, which includes Picture-in-Picture, focus points, photo galleries, plus commentaries from director David Yates, producers David Heyman and David Barron, and actors Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, and Tom Felton.  The Two-Disc Special Edition and the Blu-ray include an inside look at the first of two films that Warners is making out of the final book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

 

Working with an excellent cast that included Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, and Marion Cotillard, director Michael Mann created in Public Enemies (Universal, Single-Disc $29.98, Double-Disc Special Edition $34.98, BD $36.98) the most stylish gangster epic since Howard Hawk’s original 1932 Scarface.  By ignoring backstory and motivation Mann puts the emphasis on the process—detailing how his dueling heroes excel in their opposite, but intersecting arenas of bank-robbing and ensnaring high profile criminals.  But this clinical approach gives the film a certain coldness and detachment while placing a heavy burden on the actors, something that makes the performances of Depp and Cotillard even more remarkable.  Though it doesn’t lack for action set pieces, Public Enemies is the gangster movie as “art film,” existentially rising above the parabolic limitations of its genre.  Firmly based in the history of depression-era America as detailed in an excellent book by Bryan Burrough, Public Enemies is one of the more memorable films of 2009, though not one of the more successful (it made just under $100 million at the North American box office).

 

If Michael Mann’s film took a genre film into the less commercial and more rarefied realm of the art movie, Nora Ephron’s Julie & Julia (Sony $28.96, BD $39.95) manages to take a high-brow PBS cooking show and its quirky host and turn it into something that is really hard to make—a good screen comedy.  Meryl Streep gives one of her best performances in her zesty portrayal of Julia Child, which mixes broadly humorous elements with a true affection for the character that never allows her performance to slide into caricature.  In portraying the aspiring writer (and at times overbearing yuppie) Julie Powell, Amy Adams has a harder task in many ways, but with a deft comic touch she once again proves why she is one of the best actresses of her generation.

 

The best reviewed movie due out on DVD this week (96% positive on Rotten Tomatoes) is Shane Meadow’s Somers Town (Film Movement, $24.95), a black-and-white (except for the very end) street saga of an unlikely friendship between two young boys in contemporary London.  Meadows, the director of Twenty Four Seven, is the modern heir to the tradition of “kitchen sink realism” of directors like Ken Loach and Mike Leigh.  Somers Town is a fine “bromance,” a sweet (but never sticky) slice-of-life comedy with enough blue collar humanism and humor to make up for its slight story arc.

 

For those who like their humor more misanthropic there is Bobcat Goldthwaite’s World’s Greatest Dad (Magnolia $26.98, BD $34.98), a cynical exercise in black humor that rings true in light of today’s reality-show-infused love of celebrity, an era when parents will perpetrate a hoax involving their youngest child in a runaway balloon just for the publicity.  Robin Williams, whose talents are often obscured on screen by layers and layers of self-inflicted shtick, gives one of his best performances in this black, black comedy that remains worth seeing in spite of its sappy and predictable ending.

 

Anime

 

There are not as many new anime releases this week, but the titles that are coming out are definitely choice.  First and foremost is Viz Media’s Monster, Box Set 1 ($59.98).  Closely based on Naoki Urusawa’s seinen manga, the Monster anime, which was produced by Madhouse, is simply one of the best anime series ever.  The 3-disc set includes the first 13 episodes of the 74-episode series and will leave viewers thirsting for more chapters in this high concept thriller with political overtones galore.  In the ultimate example of the axiom that “no good deed goes unpunished,” a young neurosurgeon risks his medical career by deciding to save the life of a young boy rather than that of a superannuated politician, only to find that the child he saved is a, you guessed it, psychopathic monster.  This is a truly "adult" anime in the best, not the pornographic, sense of that overused word, and the series is rated "18+."  The compelling and psychologically astute Monster manga (published by Viz Media) is the manga series that retailers recommend to their customers who say they don’t like manga, and the Monster anime is the anime for those who profess not to like Japanese animation.

 

Also out this week is Clannad After Story Collection 2 (Sentai Filmworks, $39.98), which includes the final 12 episodes of the second season of the Clannad anime series produced by Kyoto Animation (Haruhi Suzumiya, Air, Kanon), one of the hottest anime studios in Japan.  Based on a game-like visual novel produced by Key, Clannad follows the interaction of its high school slacker protagonist Tomoya Okazaki and five heroines, though unlike many of the other visual novels produced by Key, Clannad was created for all ages.  In the very different After Story section of both the visual novel and the anime, Tomoya and the chief heroine Nagisa experience life with all its triumphs and tragedies together in a narrative that goes far beyond traditional high school romance manga and anime.  Surprisingly emotional and complex, Clannad After Story is a very evocative and even heart-rending anime.

 

Another fine anime series, Moribito Guardian of the Spirit, Part 4 (Media Blasters, $34.99) reaches its conclusion in a 2-DVD set released this week.  Based on a series of fantasy novels by Nahoko Uehashi and animated by Production I.G. (Ghost in the Shell), Moribito is the compelling saga of Balsa, a female spear warrior dedicated to saving lives, who becomes the bodyguard of a prince who has numerous deadly enemies including his own father, the emperor.

 

Documentaries

 

The Cove is one of the most interesting and controversial documentaries of the year.  Directed by former National Geographic photographer Louie Psihoyos, The Cove (Lionsgate, $27.98) follows dolphin advocate (and former Flipper trainer) Ric O’Barry in his attempt to document the dolphin slaughter at Taiji, Wakayama, Japan.  The Cove plays out like a thriller as the filmmakers use special camouflaged high definition cameras created by Industrial Light and Magic that they place in a secret cove where according to the film, thousands of dolphins are slaughtered.  95% of the critics surveyed by Rotten Tomatoes liked The Cove, which plays out like a real life espionage drama.

 

Slightly less well-received (69% positive) was The First Saturday in May (Indieblitz $19.98), the Hennegan brothers documentary that takes a look at six trainers preparing their horses for the Kentucky Derby.  While not one of the best sports documentaries of all time, The First Saturday in May will certainly please fans of horse racing and equines in general with its inside look at “the most exciting two minutes in sports.”

 

For those who enjoy documentaries in the grand leftist political tradition of The Battle of Algiers, there is Patricio Guzman’s The Battle of Chile (Icarus Films, $44.98), a 4-disc, 265-minute examination of the rise of the democratically-elected socialist government of Salvador Allende and the violent counter revolution that led to a CIA-backed military coup that toppled the Allende regime and ushered in an era of rightist repression in Chile.  Footage of the coup was smuggled out of the country and cameraman Jorge Muller was captured and killed by the military regime. 

 

TV on DVD

 

The big TV release this week is the fifth season of the cult hit serial drama Lost (ABC $59.99, BD $79.99).  The penultimate season of this labyrinthine saga is if anything more complex than what has gone on before.  As producer Damon Lindelof explains in his commentary on the Fifth Season premiere, the focus of the season is on “time travel,” and the plethora of flashbacks and flash-forwards makes this season of Lost more opaque than ever as the producers walk the “fine line between confusion and mystery.”  These trumped up temporal complications are all the more reason to watch the show on DVD where commentaries can help viewers navigate the dizzying complexities of this most intriguing series.  Seeing all the episodes in relatively close temporal proximity, which you can only do on DVD certainly helps, but the Lost DVD sets are also meticulously prepared with great attention to explaining the details of the series.  Hardcore fans may want to check out the Blu-ray version, which has a BD-Live feature, “Lost University,” where fans can ferret out the secrets of the series in an immersive and interactive “collegiate” experience.

 

Sets of the two of the best TV series of the 1960s are also coming out this week.  Perry Mason Season 4, Part 2 (Paramount, $39.98) includes episodes from the 1960-1961 of the pre-eminent courtroom drama of its era.  Clever writing created solid mysteries with strong motivations as the courtroom magician played by the incomparable Raymond Burr peels back the layers of obfuscations to arrive at the identity of the murderer. Also out this week is The Fugitive Season 3, Part 2 (Paramount, $39.98).  Yes, Paramount has, because of legal issues, replaced much of the music on this series.  Unfortunately the expense involved in clearing musical rights has prevented the issuing of a number of series on DVD such as The Wonder Years.  But the strength of The Fugitive lies in the writing, the performances and the mise-en-scene created by some of Hollywood’s top directors and photographers, and it’s great to have this series available once again, even with its new, unfortunately generic, music track.

 

One of the interesting trends in TV on DVD is a retrenchment of Blu-ray releases.  With BD prices for multi-disc TV sets generally at least $10 higher, studios have found that consumers won’t pay the extra freight for “B” level series.  Thus while Lost (see above), Mad Men, Fringe, and even Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles all perform well on Blu-ray, Sony is releasing Rescue Me, Season 5, Vol.2 on regular DVD only, after previously also putting out the series on both DVD and BD.

 

Foreign Films

 

The major foreign film release for the well-heeled is AK 100: 25 Films of Akira Kurosawa (Criterion, $399.95).  Although late 20th Century occidental commentators faulted the director for his supposed “western influences,” Kurosawa’s adaptations of Dashiell Hammett (Yojimbo), Ed McBain (High and Low), and Shakespeare (Throne of Blood, Ran) are as “Japanese” as any films by Mizoguchi or Ozu.  Almost all of the classics of the Kurosawa canon are included in this massive collection along with four films that were made during World War II and have never been released here in North America.  Cinephiles can’t go wrong with this collection.