Susan Granger’s dvd update for week of Friday, July 11th:
In anticipation of next week’s theatrical release of “The Dark Knight,” there’s “Batman Gotham Knight,” a two-disc anthology of 40-years of Batman animation history. Bonus features include a retrospective of villains, “A Mirror for the Bat: The Evil Denizens of Gotham City,” and “Sneak Peek: Wonder Woman.”
With summer in full gear, “Down the Barrel” is an exhilarating surfing documentary with four top competitors defying the uncontrollable ocean, catching the perfect wave from Hawaii’s Bonzai Pipeline to the Barrier Reef in Tahiti.
“Bonneville” teams Jessica Lange, Joan Allen and Kathy Bates on a middle-aged cross-country road trip, and Meg Ryan headlines “My Mom’s New Boyfriend” with Antonio Banderas as the man in question and Colin Hanks as her FBI-agent son.
The documentary “Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten” profiles the Clash frontman and self-described “punk-rock warlord” who died of a heart attack in 2002 at the age of 50, mixing concert clips, home movies and recollections from his associates.
From Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai, “My Blueberry Nights” features singer Norah Jones as a brokenhearted young wanderer who bonds over blueberry pie with Jude Law, the owner of a tiny New York café; while each scene is beautifully composed, it doesn’t jell.
“The Tracey Fragments,” about a troubled teen, is a failed cinematic experiment except for a fine performance by Ellen Page (“Juno”). Canadian filmmaker Brian McDonald uses a dizzying split-screen technique, resulting in a video collage that’s a trial to endure.
PICK OF THE WEEK: In “Stop-Loss,” filmmaker Kimberley Peirce (“Boys Don’t Cry”) angrily delves into what’s happening to troops currently serving their country in the Middle East, specifically, the government’s retention policy known as the backdoor draft; Ryan Phillippe, Channing Tatum, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Abbie Cornish star.