New on DVD: 'Tyson,' 'Katyn,' 'Hannah Montana'
Katyn
* * * * out of four, 2007, '09 in the USA, E1, unrated, $27
As revered Polish director Andrzej Wajda notes in an interview accompanying this, a foreign-language Oscar nominee: First came the crime and then the lie. Each (in life and as rendered here) is a dramatic powerhouse.
Back story: First, Soviet troops slaughtered 22,000 Poles in the Katyn Forest (Wajda's father included) in 1940. Then for decades, postwar Poles endured the bogus official Soviet line that blamed the Germans. Wajda has been a standout filmmaker since 1955's A Generation and won an honorary Oscar in 2000. This epic about Poland's national horror ranks with his greatest, from Ashes and Diamonds to Man of Marble and Man of Iron to Danton.
Extras, extras: Interview; featurette.
Tyson
* * *, 2009, Sony, R, $29; Blu-ray, $40
As revered Polish director Andrzej Wajda notes in an interview accompanying this, a foreign-language Oscar nominee: First came the crime and then the lie. Each (in life and as rendered here) is a dramatic powerhouse.
Back story: First, Soviet troops slaughtered 22,000 Poles in the Katyn Forest (Wajda's father included) in 1940. Then for decades, postwar Poles endured the bogus official Soviet line that blamed the Germans. Wajda has been a standout filmmaker since 1955's A Generation and won an honorary Oscar in 2000. This epic about Poland's national horror ranks with his greatest, from Ashes and Diamonds to Man of Marble and Man of Iron to Danton.
Extras, extras: Interview; featurette.
Tyson
* * *, 2009, Sony, R, $29; Blu-ray, $40
Bugsy screenwriter James Toback directed Jim Brown's most sinister screen performance in 1978's cult melodrama Fingers plus a wonderful non-fiction film about life's origins (1989's The Big Bang). He's probably the filmmaker to examine the complex world of onetime heavyweight champ Mike Tyson in what is less a documentary than what Toback calls "confessional."
Back story: Despite psychotic public behavior and a prison sentence for rape, there's more to Tyson than meets the eye in this sometimes mesmerizing complement to Barbara Kopple's 1993 documentary Fallen Champ: The Untold Story of Mike Tyson. Tyson is a talking-head portrait, but the approach mostly works.
Extras, extras: Toback commentary and three featurettes.
Breaking the Bank
* * *, 2009, PBS, unrated, no extras, $25
There must be more nuances to a saga dramatized in typicalcliff-hanging Frontline fashion by Michael Kirk, who also wrote and directed Inside the Meltdown. But what a saga.
Back story: With former Treasury secretary Henry Paulson cracking his whip, Bank of America was leaned upon to absorb teetering Merrill Lynch when global Armageddon threatened after the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Later came the realization that Merrill Lynch wasn't just debt-heavy, but, as in Cinderella, turned into a pumpkin. Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis is treated here with relative sympathy compared with Merrill Lynch counterpart John Thain, but Lewis is nonetheless portrayed as one who practiced smiling while donning glasses so he could look friendlier.
ALSO NEW ON DVD
Husbands
* *, 1970, Columbia, PG-13, $20
One of my most hilarious movie experiences ever came from sitting near three suffering 60ish matrons at a Third Avenue theater in New York City. Decked out in furs, they were groaning at the then aggressively hyped screen combination of John Cassavetes, Peter Falk and Ben Gazzara upchucking in a men's room. Well, one can empathize: Writer/director Cassavetes' angst epic about married buddies who take off for days of wine, women and notably bad song is a 2-hour, 22-minute grind (11 minutes have been added for this version) that is too misshapen for anyone beyond Cassavetes cultists to tolerate for long. A few such stalwarts rank this with the filmmaker's defining Faces (1968) and A Woman Under the Influence (1974). Not then, not now and not even close.
Hannah Montana: The Movie
* *, 2009, Disney, G, $30 and $40 versions; Blu-ray, $45
Singer Miley Stewart (Miley Cyrus) ends up with manager/papa Robby Ray Stewart (Billy Ray Cyrus) in Tennessee hoe-down country visiting kin. You can twist your knickers sorting out this cast list even before factoring in the "Hannah" angle or before the achy-breaky script throws in a lame mistaken-identity twist involving a Miley friend. Through it all, Miley proves more infectious than her deadly material, though this will never cut Bing Crosby doing Country Style in 1947's No. 1 box office hit Welcome Stranger. Hannah director Peter Chelsom once did a movie of real note: 1995's Funny Bones.
Julia
* * 1/2, 2009, Magnolia, R, $27
For about 20 minutes, the setup really promises something. Tilda Swinton is among the most chameleonic actresses to start with, but casting her as a sometimes disrobed party girl who ignores her Alcoholics Anonymous meetings dramatically reshuffles the deck. Unfortunately, the rest gets bogged down in a melodramatic kidnapping plot that runs on for 2 hours, 24 minutes. The director is Erick Zonca, barely seen since his brilliant 1988 tough weepie The Dreamlife of Angels.
More highlights
•The Simpsons: The Complete Twelfth Season (2000-2001, Fox, unrated, $50): Fans remain all over the place assessing the content value of this six-month run, which included Lisa the Tree Hugger, Pokey Mom and Children of a Lesser Clod. But the clumsy packaging deserves its current consumer online brickbats, and one senses that some big bad wolf could huff and puff and bring this cardboard house down.
•Icons of Sci-Fi: Toho Collection (1958-61, Sony, unrated, $25): Famed for introducing Godzilla, Japan's Ishiro Honda went on to have a prolific career that included a series of guilty pleasures that Columbia Pictures trimmed into versions that played U.S. neighborhood theaters and drive-ins. Included here in both their original versions and American revamps are: The H-Man (1958, '59 in the USA), Battle in Outer Space (1959-60) and Mothra (1961-62), all in widescreen Tohoscope.
Due Tuesday: Welcome grown-up fare in Duplicity and Adventureland; Oscar-nominated Trouble the Water
former heavyweight champ, andrzej wajda, james toback, screenwriter james, ashes and diamonds, katyn forest, polish director, man of iron, mike tyson, honorary oscar, screen performance, soviet troops, bugsy, standout, powerhouse, atrocities, filmmaker, Hannah Montana, Oscar Nominee, Jim Brown
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