Susan Granger’s dvd/video update for week of Friday, Feb. 27th
Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo stumble through “Blindness,” Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles’ adaptation of Nobel Prize-winning author Jose Saramago’s apocalyptic allegory in which residents of a deliberately unspecified but primarily English-speaking city are afflicted by an inexplicable ailment that affects their vision.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe team up in “Body of Lies,” a far-fetched action-adventure with DiCaprio as the Pentagon’s top spy in the Middle East and Crowe as the Langley-based ‘operative’ who tracks his every movement via computer.
Spike Lee’s episodic W.W.II drama, “Miracle at St. Anna,” is the revisionist story of African-American soldiers trapped behind enemy lines in Tuscany, combining a murder-mystery with a war epic in a muddle of “miracles.” And “Frozen River” Oscar-nominee Melissa Leo stars in the thriller “Lullaby” as an American mother who receives word that her drug-addled son has been kidnapped and is being held for ransom by a South African drug lord.
Utilizing interviews and archival footage, Christina Clausen’s loving but ultimately shallow documentary, “The Universe of Keith Haring,” traces the too-short life of the New York graffiti-style artist from his childhood to his death from AIDS at age 21. Margaret Brown’s “The Order of Myths” is a documentary about Mobile, Alabama’s Mardi Gras, which has been celebrated since 1703 and is still racially segregated. And “Adam Clayton Powell,” narrated by legendary activist Julian Bond, lauds one of the most influential civil rights leaders.
To amuse pre-schoolers, there’s “How’d They Build That?” focusing on the school bus and the concrete truck, and all their favorites (Barney, Bob the Builder, Fireman Sam, etc.) blossom together in “HIT Favorites: Here Comes Spring.”
PICK OF THE WEEK: You can get an insider’s glimpse into Hollywood in Barry Levinson’s wryly amusing “What Just Happened,” as a producer (Robert De Niro) battles a contentious, pill-popping British director (Michael Wincott) during post-production of an arty Sean Penn thriller schedule to debut at Cannes within a week and prepares to start a new film with temperamental Bruce Willis.