Last Tuesday, I promised that this week’s DVD wrap-up would have much more personal flair than last week’s, when I simply posted a list of new releases without writing even quick blurbs about each title. Well, I’m here today to break that promise. Fortunately, contributor Brandon Harris has risen to the occasion, as my flashlight of insight is out of batteries again this week (come on, we need another week like May 5th!). I’m not sure if it’s possible to span such radically different ends of the cinematic spectrum with just two (or three) titles, but these certainly do that:
2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (Criterion) — Made during the later stages Godard’s French New Wave period, 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her remains one of his most despairing and contemplative works. More than any of the fifteen features he made between ‘59 and ‘67, it points the way toward the non-narrative cinematic essays and political tracts he would make with Jean Pierre-Gorin for much of the intervening decade. Shot at the same time as the also just Criterion-released Made in U.S.A.—he would shoot one in the morning/early afternoon, the other in the late afternoon/evening—it brings us a Godard who is beginning to meditate on the failure of tumultuous times and the corruption of elites to introduce radical social and political change in a way that is still all too relevant. Buy both
Watchmen (Warner Home Video)— Zach Snyder’s long awaited, litigated over, author-disowned adaptation of Alan Moore’s seminal 1980s graphic novel delivers the high concept, superhero action movie goods with a compelling dystopian vibe about an alternative past—Nixon stayed president through the 80s, We won in Vietnam, etc.—and a surprising degree of emotional intelligence. It’s a little overlong, and probably begs, given the source material, to be a miniseries as opposed to a feature film, but Snyder successfully interweaves tons of narrative material, tricked out, highly inventive action sequences and over a dozen significant characters without seeming to break a sweat. Buy the special edition director’s cut on DVD
