Clint Eastwood's outstanding performance in Gran Torino is among this week's top highlights on DVD. Two documentaries are also worthy of attention: Woodstock: The Director's Cut, about the landmark concert, and Thrilla in Manila, about the epic boxing showdown between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier.
Woodstock: The Director's Cut
* * * * out of four, 1970, Warner, R, $25; with extras, $60; Blu-ray, $70
Heavy.
Back story:Purple Haze.
Extras, extras:Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker). Also: 18 previously unseen numbers that include 37 minutes of Grateful Dead plus Evil Ways (Santana), My Generation (The Who) and three by Creedence Clearwater Revival.
Thrilla in Manila
* * * *, 2008, Time Life, unrated, $15
Heavy.
Back story:Purple Haze.
Extras, extras:Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker). Also: 18 previously unseen numbers that include 37 minutes of Grateful Dead plus Evil Ways (Santana), My Generation (The Who) and three by Creedence Clearwater Revival.
Thrilla in Manila
* * * *, 2008, Time Life, unrated, $15
You can love Muhammad Ali and still understand why premier rival Joe Frazier remains bitter about the "gorilla" taunts and worse that Ali bellowed at him to hype their three fights. But the unconscionable degree of bitterness, that's what great drama is about.
Back story:… well, has anyone ever seen its equal? Slanted toward Frazier, who has earned a forum, this brutal beauty doesn't flinch from examining the permanent damage the "Thrilla" did to both warriors.
Extras, extras:
Gran Torino
* * *, 2008, Warner, R, $29; Blu-ray, $36
Preposterous yet surprisingly affecting, and that's just the first dichotomy. The other: December's $262 million worldwide hit is stubbornly old-fashioned yet is a movie of its time.
Back story:Clint Eastwood's performance, which is of the highest grade star power. A widower and a Korean War vet, Eastwood's character tends to his prized wheels as his Detroit neighborhood physically decays. Reluctantly getting involved with his Hmong neighbors, he still effortlessly makes hay with a "make my day" attitude. At 78.
Extras, extras: Two shorties on car culture. The Blu-ray exclusively has a featurette about Eastwood tackling this project from actor/ director perspectives.
ALSO NEW ON DVD
The International
* * 1/2, 2009, Sony, R, $29; Blu-ray, $40
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Movies have come a long way since making the town banker (played by Berton Churchill) the villain amid a motley passenger crew in John Wayne's career-making Stagecoach. Now, it's an entire Luxembourg-based institution of well-groomed banker creeps financing arms deals. Its first assassination comes early with Interpol agent Clive Owen a helpless witness. Though directed by Run Lola Run's Tom Tykwer, the movie is cold and impersonal; there's not even a romance between Owen and co-star Naomi Watts. Artistically trumped by the actor's far more entertaining Duplicity just five weeks later, it does have one extended scene that makes the movie worth seeing: a remarkable shootout in Manhattan's Guggenheim Museum. But even here, you're distracted by wondering how much the organization got paid for participating in what would seem like bad publicity.
M. Butterfly
* *, 1993, Warner, R, $20
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One hesitates to call director David Cronenberg's movie of David Henry Hwang's Tony-winning play tame, but it does seem listless for a project that immediately followed Cronenberg's The Fly, Dead Ringers and Naked Lunch. And the subject matter isn't exactly tepid: This is the fact-based tragedy of a sad-sack French diplomat (Jeremy Irons) who spilled secrets to his lover, a Chinese diva/spy (John Lone) who kept the basic secret that he was a guy. Well, nobody's perfect, as Joe E. Brown says in Some Like It Hot, though the production design and cinematography are near-perfection. But the portrayal of office politics and even Irons' weary marriage are more compelling than the central ruse, and the camera is so clinical that you wonder if an Irons eye exam might not have solved a lot of problems.
Sets
•Pittsburgh Steelers: Road to XLIII (2009, Warner, unrated, $40): Following standard tradition, Warner brought out a more modest DVD celebration of the year's Super Bowl champ three months ago. But now it's time to placate the more intense fan base. The kind of zealots who, say, made it a point to catch quarterback Terry Bradshaw's 1976 appearance on Hee Haw. So in addition to February's instant-classic 27-24 Super Bowl win over the Cardinals, there's the AFC Divisional Playoff win over the San Diego Chargers and the AFC Championship win over the Baltimore Ravens. Plus, in a nice bonus, Game 15 of the regular season: a 13-9 squeaker victory over the Ravens, climaxing a 92-yard drive.
•The Norman Lear TV Collection (1971-2009, Sony, unrated, $160): Oodles of extras (actor interviews, pilots, Lear tribute) in a massive retrospective for the landmark producer that contains entire first seasons of All in the Family, Sanford and Son, Maude, The Jeffersons, One Day at a Time and Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.
•The Jack Lemmon Collection (1954-64, Sony, unrated, $60): In rough order of preference, here's Phffft! (1954, with Judy Holliday; second movie of Lemmon and Kim Novak); Operation Madball (1957; service comedy; Ernie Kovacs' big-screen debut); Good Neighbor Sam 1964; (Romy Schneider); The Notorious Landlady (1962; Novak again plus a non-dancing Fred Astaire); strained Under the Yum-Yum Tree (1963).
Due Tuesday:The Seventh Seal on Blu-ray; Ben Gazzara's screen debut in The Strange One; Dominick Dunne revealed
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