Susan Granger’s dvd update for week of Fri., Jan. 23:
Movies changed forever on April 24, 1924, when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer opened in Hollywood and assembled “more stars than there are in the heavens.” Patrick Stewart hosts “MGM: When the Lion Roars,” a fascinating three-part Emmy Award-winning series about the legendary Dream Factory, featuring Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Judy Garland, Jean Harlow, Katharine Hepburn, Gene Kelly, Mickey Rooney, Elizabeth Taylor, Spencer Tracy and rarely seen studio executives.
“City of Ember” is a post-apocalyptic tale about a crumbling subterranean refuge whose inhabitants are saved by resourceful teenagers (Saoirse Ronan, Harry Treadway). Most intriguing are the inventive sound and visual effects, including Rube Goldberg-like contraptions reminiscent of German Expressionism and Machine Age design.
Told as a fable exploring everyday miracles, “Henry Poole Is Here” stars Luke Wilson as a depressed alcoholic whose neighbor (Adriana Barraza) interprets a water-stain on the wall of his house as an apparition of Jesus.
Appropriately named “Max Payne” is a vacuous bore with Mark Wahlberg as a NYC police detective trying to solve the murder of his wife and baby in an eardrum-shattering shoot’-em-up that started as a video game and should have stopped there.
Meg Ryan and William H. Macy team up in a romantic comedy, “The Deal,” about a veteran Hollywood movie producer who has a run of bad luck until a fantastic screenplay, literally, lands on his doorstep.
Children celebrate Chinese New Year with “The Adventures of Walker & Ping Ping,” a new series that takes teaching language a step further by displaying the Chinese words on-screen in both characters and phonetics.
PICK OF THE WEEK: Rising above the clichés of most sports movies, “The Express” tells the story of Ernie Davis (Rob Brown), star halfback at Syracuse University, who won the 1961 Heisman Trophy and became the first black awarded college football’s top honor. What’s fascinating is how he and his coach (Dennis Quaid) were affected by segregation, rampant racism and the burgeoning civil rights movement.