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DVD of the Week Spike Lee reinvents the heist thriller with a keen cat-and-mouse game that's as New York as a sidewalk hot dog in scummy water. Denzel Washington is the cop trying to
Watch a Clip! First-Run A cult movie that's also one of the best of 2006. It's a kind of teen noir, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt seeking his ex-girlfriend's killer at his high school's mean corridors. He has all the jaded intensity of a Raymond Chandler gumshoe, complete with hardboiled hipster slang. With commentary and deleted/extended scenes. Watch a Clip! Dan Whitney is either the funniest fake hillbilly since Hee-Haw, or a racist, homophobic, sexist moron. His zinger-a-minute gag ethic, however, is easier to take than Andrew Dice Clay's and the supporting cast is funny in its own right. No extras, but you do get Larry disguised as both a Hasidim and an Arab. Watch a Clip! With Fidel Castro about to take his last breath, Andy Garcia's labor of love--set in revolutionary Cuba to a salsa beat--couldn't be timelier. He's a nightclub owner closing up as the Communists march on Havana; Bill Murray is the Watch a Clip! Lady in the Water's Bryce Dallas Howard is in over her head as a gangster's daughter emancipating a plantation the Civil War passed by. Danish director Lars von Trier (Dogville) plays out the ensuing satire on American myopia on a bare-bone set, and stacks the deck so the outcome is very Danish indeed. A spoof with edge, this mockumentary by Kansas U. professor Kevin Willmott imagines what might have happened if the South won the Civil War. The anti-racist point is easy to grasp, yet it's a compelling and disturbing vision of an alternate reality. Anyone up for a double bill with Health Inspector? A must for fans of Zatoichi and his ilk. In this elegiac Japanese epic, an aging samurai pines for his servant while his corrupt masters demand that he takes down a swordsman gone wild. It builds to a devastating showdown, as an age and code of honor both pass away. Behind the scenes docs and interviews. Re-Release Before Paris, there was Jayne ... a not-very-bashful blonde whose curves were deadly weapons. She also made three great comedies: Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw and The Girl Can't Help It. All exploit her charms both physical and otherwise; The Girl features vintage rock 'n' roll performances from Little Richard, Fats Domino and Eddie Cochran. With an A&E Biography on the star. TV The second great series to document Baltimore's troubled terrain (reinvestigate Homicide: Life on the Street) is also the only series to match The Shield's steely viciousness of the modern cops and robbers game. The third season of HBO's jewel finds everything from scripts to characters becoming richer -- there's a gritty eloquence to the patter of these episodes. Bottom line? The endless go-round of drug dealing that takes place in the projects is an unflinching portrait of racism and disenfranchisement. Extras include a Q&A with the cast. Take a bit of Oz, combine it with 24 and just a whiff of Brett Ratner, and you've got this hit Fox series. Once you get past the preposterous premise--man lands in the stir so he can free his wrongly accused brother--and rampant cliché, there's plenty of Saturday matinee fun. How does it end? Check the title. Like Albert Brooks and Gary Shandling before her, Lisa Kudrow slams the runaway egos of Hollywood in her lampoon of a faded TV actress trying to jump-start her career with a romp on a fledgling reality show. The former Friends star hits a homer, really; her Valerie Cherish is a wonderful boob whose mix of self-doubt and self-admiration keeps her groveling for attention and acting like a diva. There's nothing overly vicious here, but part of the show's fun is the sharpness of its fangs. Extras include a wry interview with Cherish backstage at Dancing With the Stars. Music Jack White's favorite lesbian alt.rock twins are charming live performers. Too bad this Toronto set has all the banter edited out--but that's what the "Walking With a Ghost" sisters' nonstop commentary track is for. There's even more personality in their clever no-budget videos and bleary-eyed "on the road" diary. |
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