ARGO leads off the week’s DVDs:
DVDs for Feb. 19 by Boo Allen
This week we begin in Iran:
Argo (***1/2)
Ben Affleck directed this Best Picture Oscar nominee, and he also takes the lead role in the true story of a C.I.A. operative who secretly travels to Iran in 1980 in the guise of producer of a bogus science fiction film. Once in Tehran, he must extract six Americans hiding in the home of the Canadian Ambassador. Affleck squeezes drama from the chaotic and harrowing crowd scenes, yet the consistently taut and suspenseful film surprises with its abundant dark humor. The excellent supporting cast includes Tate Donovan, John Goodman, Clea Duvall, and Oscar nominated Alan Arkin.
Rated R, 120 minutes. The DVD comes in all formats and downloads. Supplements include commentary, full length picture in picture notes, a 17 minute segment with Affleck discussing the actual events of the film, another 11 minute segment with Affleck and a former CIA agent examining the affair, and an excellent, comprehensive 47 minute featurette on “Escape from Iran: The Hollywood Option,” which gives a first hand account of the extraction.
The Ballad of Narayama (****)
The Criterion Collection brings to Blu-ray the darkly enigmatic 1958 jewel from often overlooked director Keisuke Kinoshita. Prolific in his time in various genres, Kinoshita here examines Japan’s attitude towards the aged. But he does it with his own stylized approach, rendering a film shot entirely in a studio amid colorful and striking sets. The story centers on an aging grandmother, Orin (Kinuyo Tanaka), burdened with the expectation of relieving her son and his fiancee of a burden when she turns 70 by venturing to the peak of Mount Narayama. The mountain serves as symbolic euthanasia, a benignly described destination that all older people must eventually visit. The old woman’s rejection and ultimate voyage play out as society’s biting indictment, yet one filled with wonder and an appreciation of life.
Not rated, 98 minutes.
The Thief of Bagdad (***1/2)
The Cohen Media Group has announced the release of the Cohen Film Collection, a collection of more than 700 cinematic nuggets that span the full range of the medium. Here, they have rescued and given a Blu-ray release to the rousing 1924 silent classic starring Douglas Fairbanks as Ahmed, secret suitor to a Bagdad princess. With surprisingly striking production values and with a contemporary score by Carl Davis.
Not rated, 149 minutes. The DVD includes the 17 minute featurette on the film “Flight and Fantasy: The Thief of Bagdad.”
Undefeated (***)
The 2011 Oscar winning documentary presents an inspirational story of a downtrodden Memphis high school football team, the Manassas Tigers. Volunteer coach Bill Courtney arrives in time for filmmakers T J Martin and Dan Lindsay to capture the team’s transformation. Martin and Lindsay also concentrate on three inner-city players who struggle to succeed.
Rated PG-13, 114 minutes. The DVD, in all formats, includes commentary, six deleted scenes and a nine minute “making of” featurette.
The Package (**1/2)
Steve Austin and Dolph Lundgren star in this standard action-thriller set in Seattle. Austin plays a bouncer who, in order to satisfy a debt, must deliver a mysterious package to a mobster (Lundgren). Instead, emotions and tempers rise, setting off a series of battles of various sorts by director Derek Kolstad.
Rated R, 95 minutes.
Mimesis (***)
Astute horror fans might find familiar this clever work from director and co-writer Douglas Schulze, as his on-screen characters are stuck into a situation eerily yet intentionally similar to the plot of horror classic “Night of the Living Dead.” The group of seven, all mostly unknown to each other, wake to find themselves at a rural farm house after a night of revelry, wearing different clothes and unfamiliar with their surroundings. When they learn that zombies are outside, threatening to munch on them if they leave, they realize that each is taking a real life part similar to a movie role. But Schulze, like the creators of the snarky “The Cabin in the Woods,” has more hidden tricks, as, not surprisingly, not everything, or everyone, is what it or he seems.
Rated R, 95 minutes.
Cyclist (**1/2)
Beautiful Utah mountains make palatable this routine drama that amounts mostly to a celebration of cycling. K.C. Clyde plays Phil Nash, a bike messenger who loses his job and his girlfriend, enough simultaneous trauma to drive him towards his ultimate dream of bike racing. With new friends and a fresh start, he tackles the task laid before him by writer-director and obvious cyclist enthusiast John Lawrence.
Not rated, 89 minutes. The DVD contains deleted scenes.
And now, something for the kids:
Hats Off to Dr. Seuss—Collector’s Edition
This impressive collection of Dr. Seuss TV specials holds such favorites as “Green Eggs and Ham,” “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” “The Cat in the Hat,” “The Lorax,” “Horton Hears a Who!” and more.
Not rated. The set includes a documentary on Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss), four bonus Dr. Seuss classic cartoons, four interactive puzzles, a featurette on how the Grinch made it to Hollywood, and more.
The Red Hen . . . and more cooking stories
Scholastic Schoolbook Treasures presents these four tales centered on cooking from Caldecott Award winning father and daughter team Ed and Rebecca Emberley. In the title piece, Red Hen has help from friends cat, rat, frog and others to help bake a cake. Lily Tomlin and Michael McKean pitch in with the narration.
Not rated, 56 minutes. The disc also holds a cake recipe and read-along captioning.
Babar—the movie
In this full length animated treat, the King of the Elephants joins his friends to thwart Ratases and rescue future Queen Celeste.
Rated G, 98 minutes. The disc also includes the Babar TV episode “Monkey Business.”
And finally, from deep in the TV vault comes a classic:
Naked City: 20 Star Filled Episodes
The first face on-screen in the first episode, of twenty, on the first disc, of five, of this revered police drama that ran from 1958 to 1963 is that of Robert Morse, known nowadays as Senior Partner Bert Cooper on “Mad Men.” About fifteen minutes later, an unbilled, and impossibly young, Dustin Hoffman appears. William Shatner stars in the second episode, Peter Fonda and Martin Sheen in the third. And so it goes throughout these selected episodes that showcase the finest acting talent that was then available in New York, a fertile time of the Actors Studio and Lee Strasberg’s Method classes. The weekly ABC series starred Paul Burke, Horace McMahon, and Harry Bellaver as the trio of working detectives who would break cases while showing fatherly concern for those they arrest, mostly men. Unlike today’s police procedurals, each episode would usually focus on one crime and one individual, giving the series ground-breaking psychological depth.
Not rated, 972 minutes.
Also on DVD: Fun Size, Game of Thrones—second season, Prison, Sinister.