New on DVD: 'Trouble the Water,' 'Duplicity'
Trouble the Water
* * * * out of four, 2008, Zeitgeist, unrated, $30
A Sundance winner, Oscar nominee and a documentary you can mention in the same breath as Spike Lee's 2006 When the Levees Broke, still my pick for the decade's greatest film.
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Adventureland
* * * 1/2, 2009, Miramax, R, $30; Blu-ray, $45
A Sundance winner, Oscar nominee and a documentary you can mention in the same breath as Spike Lee's 2006 When the Levees Broke, still my pick for the decade's greatest film.
Back story:
Extras, extras:
Adventureland
* * * 1/2, 2009, Miramax, R, $30; Blu-ray, $45
Not quite five months after its release, its cult is swelling.
Back story:The Squid and the Whale and The Education of Charlie Banks, Jesse Eisenberg appears to have cornered the market on playing sensitive adolescents with brains. In a far more wistful comedy than writer/director Greg Mottola's Superbad, Eisenberg plays a grad-school-bound lit major forced to take a summer job at a dilapidated Pittsburgh amusement park. This unassuming look-back set in 1987 sneaks up on you. As in Into the Wild (but not Twilight), an underplaying Kristen Stewart is given material she can play with.
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Duplicity
* * * 1/2, 2009, Universal, PG-13, $30; Blu-ray, $40
Gadgetry has its expected place in this brainy corporate-spy comedy, writer/director Tony Gilroy's follow-up to Michael Clayton. But don't expect tailfins morphing into machine guns: the rat-tat-tat is in the dialogue.
Back story:Closer, Clive Owen and Julia Roberts play spies who meet cute before their relationship becomes as byzantine as the script's plot twists and flashbacks. In a super supporting role, Paul Giamatti is repulsively coarse as the kind of big shot who likely got to the top by letting the boss beat him in golf. As his rival, Tom Wilkinson recalls his performance as James Baker in Recount: an urbane smoothie who picks your pocket.
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ALSO NEW ON DVD
Playtime (Blu-ray)
* * * *, 1967, '73 in the USA, Criterion, unrated, $40
Though France's great director/comic Jacques Tati had a sensibility all his own, anyone who savors the distinctively visual styles of Jerry Lewis and Blake Edwards will find a kindred creation in Tati's most elaborately designed masterpiece. Again examining the techno-horrors of industrialized society in the 20th century's second half, Playtime gives us a modern Paris where street apartments look like department stores and a posh nightclub endures a mass technical malfunction on opening night. Criterion has also just released a predictably handsome Blu-ray of Akira Kurosawa's Kagemusha (1980, PG, $40).
The Garden
* * *, 2008, Oscilloscope, unrated, $30
The title oasis was 14 acres of farmland in South Central Los Angeles, created in the aftermath of 1992's Rodney King riots and tended to by a predominantly Hispanic population. Scott Hamilton Kennedy's Oscar-nominated documentary shows what happened when the property owner decided he wanted the property back: a confrontation that put whites, blacks and Hispanics on differing sides of the issue. Ordinarily, one would say, "Well, the guy owned the land, and it's his right to do what he wants." But there's a real stench of greased palms and sweetheart deals throughout the story, echoing that juicy brand of municipal corruption that created L.A. in the first place.
The Informers
* *, 2009, Sony, R, $25; Blu-ray, $35
It isn't easy to make a camp classic (or something close) that deals in part with AIDS, but this trash heap about '80s excesses adapted from Bret Easton Ellis' novel is a beach-read kind of movie that even has one key scene on the beach. A smorgasbord cast plays this rancid yarn's high and low rollers: Billy Bob Thornton, Kim Basinger, Mickey Rourke, Winona Ryder, Chris Isaak and Amber Heard.
Sports
•Yankeeography: The Captains (2002-05, MLB/AE, $25): There have been only seven captains in the Bombers' history, though some would have lobbied for Joe Pepitone or Jose Canseco just to see what would have happened. Culled from YES Network broadcasts, this 5-hour, 18-minute box set profiles Lou Gehrig, Thurman Munson, Graig Nettles, Willie Randolph, Ron Guidry, Don Mattingly and Derek Jeter.
•NFL "Greatest Games" series:Frank Gifford on the New York Giants overview unless he's in the stands buying Kathie Lee a toasted pretzel). Nonetheless, these are complete network broadcasts of predominantly post-season contests. The newest releases in this seductive ongoing library are: New York Giants 10 Greatest Games (1987-2008, $50); Philadelphia Eagles 10 Greatest Games (1978-2006, $50); Minnesota Vikings 5 Greatest Games s, Vol. 1 (1988-2008, $40) and San Francisco 49ers 5 Greatest Games: Super Bowl Victories (1982-1995, $40).
Due Tuesday:Earth; the uncommonly reflective baseball pic Sugar; punchy Sin Nombre
greg mottola, paul giamatti, jesse eisenberg, sundance winner, corporate spy, trouble the water, comedy writer, plot twists, clive owen, greatest film, squid and the whale, machine guns, director tony, when the levees, Hurricane Katrina, Tony Gilroy, Kristen Stewart, Michael Clayton, Oscar Nominee, Superbad
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