Susan Granger’s dvd/video update for week of Friday, June 12th
With prescient timeliness, bankers are the bad guys in “The International,” a globe-hopping, contemporary thriller, starring Clive Owen and Naomi Watts, but the sinister, sophisticated plot is so confusing that the tension quickly dissipates.
As dumb teen sex comedies go, “Fired Up!” is a dud. Nicholas d’Agosto and Eric Christian Olsen are top scorers on their football team so they decide to bypass training camp in favor of cheerleading camp ?cause that’s where the girls are. It’s so smarmy and filled with stereotypes that the screenwriter decided to use the pseudonym “Freedom Jones” and the inexperience of first-time director Will Gluck is apparent.
Just in time for Father’s Day on June 21st, there’s Richard Linklater’s “Inning By Inning: Portrait of A Coach,” the heartwarming baseball-themed documentary about University of Texas’s Augie Garrido, the winningest coach in NCAA Division I history. There’s also “New York Yankees: Perfect Games and No-Hitters,” including Don Larsen’s rarely-seen 1956 World Series triumph; there are six full-game broadcasts, plus hours of bonus programming.
For laughs, “NFL’s Greatest Follies, Vol. 4” shows the gut-busting gaffes, side-splitting slips and jaw-dropping drops of many of today’s football greats, along with poking fun at players, officials and mascots.
And for memories: “Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music ” The Director’s Cut 40th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition,” which poignantly captures the time and the place, along with being the ultimate rock concert movie with two extra hours of rare performance footage, some of it newly discovered, some only seen in part, plus interviews with Martin Scorsese, Hugh Hefner and Eddie Kramer, the show’s original chief on-site engineer.
PICK OF THE WEEK: Clint Eastwood’s “Gran Torino” is a confrontational tale about a scowling, surly, snarling retired autoworker in suburban, blue-collar Detroit who reluctantly comes to terms with his abusive racism through his relationship with a Hmong teenager harassed by hoodlums. It’s a character-driven, culture-colliding tragicomedy, tinged with ethnic, racial and religious tension. At 78, Eastwood still commands the screen.