New DVD Spin: Charlie Wilson's War, The Savages, Cloverfield, Silent Ozu, and More

What's landing on our DVD shelves this week? Here are some titles that snatched our attention. Keep visiting us here at Film.com/DVD for more reporting and opinionating on titles you see here.

Editor's Choice:

Charlie Wilson's War (Universal)
Film.com

This low-key satisfying, refreshingly old-school star vehicle brings together a cast headed by Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, and Philip Seymour Hoffman in a compelling and witty film from Oscar-winning director Mike Nichols and writer Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing). Based on the outrageous true story, Charlie Wilson's War shows how one horndog Texas congressman who loved a good time, one Houston socialite who loved a good cause, and one renegade CIA agent who loved a good fight conspired to bring about the largest covert operation in history.

With a script that's polished to a sparkling shine, here's Hollywood-style history that's both entertaining and occasionally enlightening, especially when the ending defines "unintended consequences" for our new century.

"More of a hoot than any picture dealing with the bloody, protracted fight between the Soviet Army and the Afghan mujahedeen has any right to be." -- A.O. Scott, The New York Times

"A picture about war and politics that has manages to be both rational and inspirational. It is also the year's funniest smart movie." -- Richard Corliss, Time

The DVD features include The Making of Charlie Wilson's War featuring director Nichols, screenwriter Sorkin, producer/actor Tom Hanks, producer Gary Goetzman, the real Charlie Wilson and Joanne Herring, and actors Julia Roberts, Emily Blunt, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams. We also get Who Is Charlie Wilson?, with Nichols, Hanks, Wilson, Herring, technical advisor Jere Van Dyk, and CIA advisor Milt Bearde giving us more about the man behind the film.

Editor's rating: 4 out of 5 Oh-hell-yeahs

The Savages (Fox)
Film.com

"Anybody who's even vaguely familiar with Peter Pan will know to expect arrested adolescence when introduced to a brother and sister pointedly named Jon and Wendy. But it's writer-director Tamara Jenkins's decision to change the family surname from Darling to Savage that truly speaks volumes. This no-bullshit approach well befits her subject, one so depressing and uncommercial that American movies have generally refused to go anywhere near it, even in passing: the trials of adult children who must suddenly care for a dementia-addled parent. Here, fortyish Jon (Philip Seymour Hoffman, really working the schlump), a college professor specializing in Brecht, and Wendy (Laura Linney, surprisingly manic), a failed playwright subsisting on temp work, must put aside decades of interpersonal rancor in order to tend to their ailing father, Lenny (Philip Bosco), whom they both resent for having been a distant and demanding figure throughout their motherless childhood. ... The Savages has been rapturously received, not entirely without reason -- Linney and Hoffman are both typically excellent. ... But I also think people are just inordinately happy that Jenkins -- whose only previous feature, the ticklish comedy Slums of Beverly Hills, came out nine long years ago -- has finally made another movie." -- Mike D'Angelo, NervePop.com

"The Savages is terrific -- a movie of uncommon appreciation for the nature and nurture that go into making us who we are, a perfectly calibrated drama both compassionate and unsentimental." -- Entertainment Weekly

"Both Linney and Hoffman are so specific in creating these characters that we see them as people, not elements in a plot. Hoffman in particular shows how many disguises he has within his seemingly immutable presence; would you know it is the same actor here and in two other films this season, 'Before the Devil Knows You're Dead' and 'Charlie Wilson's War'?" -- Roger Ebert

The DVD features include a 20-minute featurette, About the Savages, with input from director Jenkins and stars Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman. There are two extended scenes and a snapshot gallery of Jenkins' personal "making of" photos.

Editor's rating: 4 out of 5 Oh-hell-yeahs

Cloverfield (Paramount)
Film.com

Now on DVD and well past the prefab hype, here's producer J.J. Abrams' and director Matt Reeves' postmodern popcorntainment for the YouTube Age. In this jittery, hand-held special-effects demo reel, a Giant Inexplicable Cthulhoid Monster devastates New York City, toppling buildings and party kegs everywhere.

Vérité is now not a style but a Photoshop filter.

However, although the movie's as hollow as a chocolate Easter bunny, and no more nutritious, sometimes we just dig the chocolate, dude.

"Cloverfield's mission is to thrill us with creature-induced pandemonium, and it does that better than any American monster movie in years. We feel like we're there with Rob and his friends, susceptible to the same surprises and horrors, and trapped by the same limitations. And since the characters are just regular kids, not heroes or military personnel, we instinctively understand that the movie will not end with Rob firing the shot that kills the monster and then being given a medal by the president." -- Eric D. Snider, Film.com

DVD extras include audio commentary with director Matt Reeves; Document 1.18.08: The Making of Cloverfield; Cloverfield Visual Effects; I Saw It! It's Alive! It's Huge! (creature design); Clover Fun (blooper reel); deleted scenes; and alternate endings (not nearly as interesting as we hoped they'd be).

Editor's rating: 3.5 out of 5 Grrr, Arrrghs

Silent Ozu - Three Family Comedies (Tokyo Chorus, I Was Born But..., Passing Fancy) (Criterion Collection: Eclipse Series 10)
Criterion.com

In the late 1920s and early '30s, Yasujiro Ozu was working steadily for Shochiku studios, honing his craft on dozens of silent films in various genres, from romantic melodramas to college comedies to gangster pictures -- and, of course, movies about families. In these three droll domestic films -- Tokyo Chorus, I Was Born, But... , and Passing Fancy, presented here with all-new scores by renowned silent-film composer Donald Sosin -- Ozu movingly and humorously depicts middle-class struggles and the resentments between children and parents, establishing the emotional and aesthetic delicacy with which he would transform the landscape of cinema.

This box set includes:

I Was Born, But... (1932) -- One of Ozu's most popular films, I Was Born But ... is a blithe portrait of the financial and psychological toils of one family, as told from the rascally point of view of a couple of stubborn little boys. For two brothers, the daily struggles of bullies and mean teachers is nothing next to the mortification they feel when they realize their good-natured father's low-rung social status. Reworked decades later as Ozu's Technicolor comedy Good Morning, it's a poignant evocation of the tumult of childhood, as well as a showcase for Ozu's expertly timed comedy editing.

Passing Fancy (1933) -- The first of many films featuring the endearing single-dad Kihachi (played wonderfully by Takeshi Sakamoto), Passing Fancy is a humorous and heartfelt study of a close, if fraught, father-son relationship. With an ever more sophisticated visual style and understanding of fragile human relationships, Ozu seamlessly weaves rib-tickling comedy and weighty family drama for this distinguished precursor to a brilliant career.

Tokyo Chorus (1931) -- Combining three prevalent genres of the day -- the student comedy, the salaryman film, and the domestic drama -- Ozu created this warmhearted family comedy, and demonstrated that he was truly coming into his own as a cinema craftsman. The setup is simple: low-wage-earning dad Okajima is depending on his bonus, and so are his wife and children, yet payday doesn't exactly go as planned. Exquisite and economical, Ozu's film alternates between brilliantly mounted comic sequences and heartrending working-class realities.

Editor's rating: 5 out of 5 Oh-hell-yeahs

The Orphanage (Picturehouse/New Line)
Film.com
DVD and Blu-ray

In Juan Antonio Bayona's stylish 2007 Spanish supernatural mystery, Beleén Rueda stars as Laura, who returns to the stately manor house that holds such a special place in her heart. The orphanage was abandoned years ago; Laura and her husband, Carlos, plan to reopen it as a center for sick and disabled children. It will be a place where boys and girls -- including the couple's beloved 7-year-old Simón -- can play freely in the open air, enjoying the sunshine and the nearby beach. In its years of solitude, however, the orphanage has acquired a haunted, unhappy air. To get used to his creepy surroundings, Simón starts to have relationships with imaginary friends. Simón's circle of unseen friends quickly expands to include five more boys and girls, who tell cryptic stories and engage him in elaborate games that carry a suggestion of the sinister. Troubled, Laura allows herself to get sucked into her son's eerie world, which seems to resonate with a far-away and disturbing echo of her own childhood experiences.

The Orphanage was chosen by the Spanish Academy of Films as Spain's nominee for the 2007 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.

"Reaches truly terrifying heights as it becomes clear how possible the worst outcome can be. Like 'Pan's Labyrinth,' this is a movie about children made very much for adults." -- Marc Mohan, The Oregonian

DVD features include audio commentary with director Juan Antonio Bayona, When Laura Grew Up featurette, Tomas's Secret Room, photo gallery, and more.

Editor's rating: 4 out of 5 Oh-hell-yeahs

Also on DVD This Week:

The Major and the Minor (Universal Cinema Classics) (Universal)
IMDb

"Wilder's first film as director begins brilliantly with Rogers as a New York career woman disillusioned to find her house calls offering scalp massage constantly subject to male misinterpretation -- in particular from a lecherous Benchley pursuing 'a little drinkypoo, biteypoo, rhumbapoo' -- who masquerades as a pigtailed l2-year-old innocent in order to avoid paying full adult fare on the train home to Iowa. Very funny stuff as she meets Milland's protective major, and finds ambiguous refuge in his sleeping compartment, although it later proves to be a one-joke situation as she is forced to accompany him to the military academy where he instructs, and becomes mascot to a horde of hopefully lecherous cadets. Pretty irresistible, nevertheless, with Rogers doing a beautiful job of dovetailing sexual provocation and demure innocence." -- Time Out Film Guide

"On her first day of work, Sue Applegate (Ginger Rogers) has to escape the clutches of a lecherous client (Robert Benchley, whose favorite line is 'Why don't you slip out of that wet coat and into a dry martini?'). Fed up with the big city, Sue decides to head home to Iowa with the precious $27.50 train fare she's kept in a sealed envelope since her arrival. The fare has gone up, however, and she is forced to pose as a 12-year-old to buy a half-price ticket. On the train, she has to dodge the suspicious conductors and bursts into the compartment of Major Phillip Kirby (Ray Milland), who falls for Sue's masquerade and harbors her for the night. The situation is further complicated by the major's fiancée (Rita Johnson) and her savvy 12-year-old sister (Diana Lynn), the only one who sees through the ruse. Add a stay at the major's academy and some escapades with young, hormone-driven cadets, and you have an enjoyable, if not quite classic, silly comedy, well paced by Billy Wilder in his first directorial effort. Rogers's real-life mother appears in a small role as Sue's mother. Rogers is only occasionally convincing as a 12-year-old, but after all she was 30 at the time." -- Amazon.com's David Horiuchi

One Missed Call (Warner Home Video)
Film.com

"On the shortlist for least essential movie of the decade, a copy of a copy of a copy that's so worn down, it's about as fresh and vital as a fifth-generation dub of "The Star Wars Holiday Special." -- Scott Tobias, Onion A.V. Club

"The original movie One Missed Call is based on was pretty tame, at least by Miike standards. And since it appears studios have no intention of halting this flood of abysmal rehashes, allow me to suggest that they at least have the stones not to pussyfoot around and give us a remake worthy of Hollywood, of America, and of an audience that lacks the willpower to stop buying tickets to half-assed crap." -- Pete Vonder Haar, Film Threat

"If your cell phone vibrates while you're watching One Missed Call, go ahead and answer, because even a wrong number will be more exciting than what's happening onscreen." -- Chuck Wilson, LA Weekly

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