Max’s Best DVD and Blu-Ray Picks – August, 2011
I too have been living in the “dog days” of summer, so I know how you folks have been suffering from one of the hottest, wettest, and wildest summers in anyone’s memory.
My master and I have found some relief watching classic movies on TV and from his DVD collection, and also some new movies and documentaries we recommend this month. Two of the movies are from the British and one, our best pic of the month, is from France.
MY BEST FRIEND
One of the top French stars, Daniel Auteuil, plays an antique collector in Paris who seems to have it all, except nobody likes him. In fact, his business partner, played by Julie Gatet, bets him he can’t produce even one friend in ten days or forfeit an expensive Greek vase he just bought. Desperate to find even one person to stand in as his friend, he seeks help from a taxi driver who is a walking encyclopedia of trivia facts. Dany Boon plays the taxi driver, and he and Auteuil play against each other so well, they make a great new comedy team. It’s a heartwarming comedy from French director Patrice Leconte (The Man on the Train and Intimate Stranger). The movie is a delightful surprise as we follow Auteuil as he learns the meaning of friendship. Why can’t Hollywood make movies as clever, intelligent, and funny as this gem? On DVD in French with English subtitles from IFC (Independent Film Channel).
JOE MADDISON’S WAR
Robson Green (of the British TV series Wire in the Blood) and Derek Jacobi (of I, Claudius), two of my favorite British actors, team up to star in this drama that takes viewers back to Newcastle, England, in 1940. Kevin Whately (of the Inspector Morse British TV series) plays Joe Maddison, a shipyard worker too old to fight in World War II. He and his friend played by Green, decide to help the war effort by joining the Home Guard, headed by the local pharmacist, played by Jacobi. Their lives take a major turn in an unexpected journey of self-discovery. An off-beat story of World War II that my master and I both enjoyed very much. The DVD is from BFS Entertainment.
THE STREET
Season Two of the British award-winning television series further explores the lives of everyday working-class people on a street in Manchester, northern England. Actors including David Thewlis, Timothy Spall, and Gina McKee portray people there today who struggle with moral choices involving poverty, drug and alcohol addiction, sexuality, unemployment, and crime. It’s a Brit version of reality television worth looking into, from BFS Entertainment.
Documentaries
WIKISECRETS
A hard-hitting documentary about the biggest intelligence breach in American history. You know it from the news… the WikiLeaks website sent more than a half-million classified documents over the Internet in the spring of 2010,and the event rocked the world. This documentary focuses on two of the men behind the leaks, Julian Assange, the Internet activist and hacker who published the documents, and Bradley E. Manning, a U.S. Army intelligence analyst who is charged with handling the documents over to WikiLeaks. Both men maintain the leaks were made in the hope of inciting “worldwide discussion, debate, and reforms.” This is very exciting stuff from PBS Television’s Frontline series, the DVD from PBS Television.
BREAKING NEWS BREAKING DOWN
A fascinating documentary exploring the work of two journalists who covered two of the biggest disaster stories of the century… the 9/11 terrorism and Hurricane Katrina. It’s an exciting personal report on how the disasters impacted their lives as journalists and citizens and also how the events impacted the lives of others. Mike Walter tells about 9/11 and John McCusker about Katrina. My master, a former Chicago Tribune reporter, says covering major events can be harrowing for the journalist, and this documentary proves it. The award-winning 40-minute documentary is from PBS Distribution.
AN AMERICAN FAMILY: ANNIVERSARY EDITION
The most controversial and talked-about television program of its time, “An American Family” knocked socks off in 1973. Filmmakers Alan and Susan Raymond took viewers into the homes and lives of a perhaps typical American family, a couple with five children, and recorded how they lived over a periods of seven months. Events included the wife asking for a separation from her husband, and the Bohemia New York life of their gay son. The twelve episodes are now on DVD in a 40th-year anniversary special from PBS Distribution. Talk about real life television, it doesn’t come much more alive than this two-hour special.
STARGAZING
From the PBS Television Explorer Collection and NOVA, a close look at 400 years of the telescope including its past, present, and future. Both serious and amateur star-gazers will be in cosmic heaven with this exciting documentary. My master and I especially liked the segment where NASA sent a shuttle crew on a dangerous spring 2009 mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope for the last time that required the most intensive NASA spacewalk ever.
A five-hour, five DVD set from PBS Distribution.
MARS: THE RED PLANET
Another documentary in the NOVA-PBS Explorer Collection, this one takes a close look at Mars, one of the planets closest to Earth. Is there life on the red planet? These and other questions are probed in the four-hour, four disc set is from PBS Distribution.
LOOPDIVER: THE JOURNEY OF A DANCE
The award-winning international dance company, Troika Ranch, is seen creating its next work, called Loopdiver.
It’s an avant-garde, multimedia dance work interweaving looped choreography, music, interactive visuals, and lighting that should appeal to music and dance lovers.
It’s only a half-hour long, but packs a lot of entertainment in a short documentary, from PBS Distribution.
SONGS OF THE 70’S
Marvin Hamlisch hosts a musical love letter DVD to the pop music of the 1970s in a special called THE WAY WE WERE, which of course you know was the title of his hit song from the movie with Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford. The DVD contains performances by stars of that decade singing the songs they made famous, including BJ Thomas, Three Dog Night, Debby Boone, Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis Jr., Ray Stevens, Freda Payne, Guy and Ralna, Bobby Goldsboro, Billy Joe Royal, Peaches and Herb, Jonathan Edwards. Of course I have a special fondness for Three Dog Night. It’s the first time they all appeared on stage together, and it’s a real hoot. Or should I say howl. From PBS Distribution, available both on DVD and CD.
BRITISH TRAVEL: WAINWRIGHT WALKS, THE LAKE DISTRICT
Julie Bradbury, a novice mountain-climber, takes us on ten of the most popular walking routes taken years earlier by the late travel guide and author Alfred Wainwright in northwest England’s Lake District rich in mountains and lakes. A very special travel adventure in a 3-DVD set from BFS Entertainment.
Stay cool, and see you at the same fire hydrant next month.
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