The week’s DVDs begin in Israel:
DVDs for July 9 by Boo Allen
This week we begin in Israel:
Gatekeepers (***1/2)
This Oscar nominated documentary features lengthy interviews with six former heads of Shin Bet, Israel’s terrorist-intelligence agency. They sit, almost eerily calm, with director Dror Moreh and discuss some of the challenges they faced while in service. Their testimonies are riveting. Moreh also chronicles Israel’s modern history with copious archival footage and emotional on-site news clips of actual bombings and other acts of terror. Moreh’s biggest discovery, however, is not with the visual documentation but with what the men have to say about the limitations on how the alleged war on terror has been waged. And their similar views are not comforting.
Rated PG-13, 97 minutes. The DVD includes commentary and a 42 minute on-stage Question and Answer session with Dror Moreh and moderator Stephen Farber.
The Host (**1/2 )
This recent science-fiction fantasy written by Stephenie Meyer, author of the Twilight phenomenon, made an easy critical target with its expected gooey teen triangle. But it also provides some workable themes for Australian writer-director Andrew Niccol, who has previously turned out a number of films probing identity and free will: Gattaca, Simone, The Truman Show. When Host begins, earth has already been taken over by aliens who inhabit everyone’s bodies except for a few human outliers. Much like the humans in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, these humans fight to retain their own identities. But when Melanie Stryker (Saorise Ronan) is inhabited, her real self remains inside, making for an eerie sort of dual dialogue and a discomforting voice-over. She joins a rebel group led by William Hurt, and, in between romances with two handsome young men, she finds balance.
Rated PG-13, 126 minutes. The DVD, in all formats and downloads, offers commentary, four deleted scenes, an eight minute “behind-the-scenes” featurette, and a brief “Seeker” Public Service Announcement.
The Painted Veil (**1/2), The Human Factor (***), Zandy’s Bride (***1/2)
Of the three film versions made from novelist Somerset Maugham’s The Painted Veil (the other two: 1957’s Seventh Sin, and the 2006 The Painted Veil with Edward Norton and Naomi Watts), this 1934 Veil (85 minutes) has something the others do not: Greta Garbo. The enigmatic Swedish actress almost makes believable the overly dramatic story of a clumsy English physician (Herbert Marshall) taking an Austrian wife (Garbo) and going to China to help the natives. While there, she becomes bored and cheats on her husband (something not possible later in this same year when the Production Code began to be enforced) with a local bureaucrat (George Brent). When rebuked by her lover, she returns to her husband, who takes her back in name only. She then redeems herself by working with cholera patients. Graham Greene wrote the source novel for the intelligent, albeit slow paced, spy drama The Human Factor (rated R, 1979, 115 minutes). Noted playwright Tom Stoppard wrote the screenplay, paying heed to Greene’s morally tortured characters. But Otto Preminger directed, bringing his lethargic style to an already measured character study. Nicol Williamson plays a London bureaucrat in England’s Intelligence division. His superiors (John Gielgud, David Attenborough) believe another man (Derek Jacobi) to be the source of the division’s intelligence leak. A cat and mouse game of wits plays out. In Zandy’s Bride (rated PG, 1974), one of the few jewels from master Swedish director Jan Troell, Liv Ullmann stars as the title character, Hannah, a shy immigrant to California’s Big Sur country during rough frontier days. She arrives as a mail order bride to small time cattleman Zandy Allan (Gene Hackman). From the start, he berates and belittles her, even raping her on their wedding night. From there, Troell could have taken a formulaic route with Zandy softening and Hannah eventually winning him over with her charms. But instead, she triumphs with great grit, arriving at a point of self-sufficiency that precludes the rough frontiersman, as she stuns him with her intelligence and discipline. As with virtually all of Troell’s films, beautifully filmed with little falsity found in the characters.
The Girl (***)
Abbie Cornish plays Ashley, a somewhat irresponsible single mother who lives in South Texas. When she loses custody of her child, she visits her shady father (Will Patton) in a Mexican border town. When she learns he has been making money smuggling immigrants into the U.S., she makes an attempt to earn money to help get back her child. But the scheme goes horribly wrong, and she ends up with an abandoned girl. The two seem shackled together, as Ashley struggles to find refuge for the girl. Of course along the way, they bond, and Ashley redeems herself despite her selfish and feckless ways. The film maintains viewer interest despite familiar material from writer-director David Riker.
Rated PG-13, 94 minutes. The DVD includes a 21 minute “making of” featurette.
The House I live In (***1/2)
Eugene Jarecki’s engaging, fast-moving documentary focuses on the War on Drugs and how it has been a laughable failure. Jurecki interviews politicians, judges, convicts, ex-convicts, and others, while examining the unfairness of the drug laws. He paints an indicting picture against current laws and practices and even offers a few remedies.
Not rated, 108 minutes. The disc also includes five additional, brief featurettes on some of the film’s topics.
In this week’s TV arrivals, a new favorite appears along with a well known classic:
Portlandia—season three
West coast weirdness finds a home in this popular I.F.C. series set in Portland, Oregon. Dave (Fred Armisen) and Kath (Carrie Brownstein) return as two inhabitants who find regular amusement in antics of the local personalities, including the over-energetic mayor (Kyle MacLachlan). Also this year, a new roommate, Alexandra (Chloe Sevigny), complicates matters for everyone. The season sees appearances from Jeff Goldblum, Kumail Nanjiani, and others.
Not rated, 242 minutes. The season’s ten episodes arrive on two discs, along with deleted scenes and the special episode “Winter in Portlandia.”
Twilight Zone—season three
This episode-only assemblage of some of creator Rod Serling’s finest work includes 37 episodes on five discs. Serling had somehow kept his series fresh and innovative, even by this third season that saw a greater attention to possible nuclear annihilation. For example, the episode “Two” stars Charles Bronson and Elizabeth Montgomery as the only survivors in an isolated, destroyed town. With virtually no dialogue, they convey what has happened a few years before. Serling wrote the episode “The Shelter,” in which a neighborhood devolves into anarchic chaos when the owner of the area’s only bomb shelter will not admit others during a bomb scare. The season also features appearances by guest stars Robert Redford, Leonard Nimoy, Dean Stockwell, Cliff Robertson, Carol Burnett and many others.
Also on DVD: Boy, Dead Man Down, Spring Breakers.