Tom McCarthy's "Win Win" (Fox), starring Paul Giamatti as small-town lawyer and family man, is a small film from with a big heart. Which sounds like a promotional cliché but it's true in the case of this low-key family comedy, a compassionate portrait of fallible people trying to do their best under pressure.

Giamatti, at his self-effacing, genially gentle best, plays an elder lawyer with a struggling practice and a head coach of a failing high school wrestling team. In a moment of desperation, he petitions the court to become guardian of an aging client (Burt Young) but reneges on his promise the old man. Meanwhile he and his wife (Amy Ryan) take in the man's grandson (Alex Shaffer), an easy-going runaway who suddenly showed looking for a place to stay while his mom is in rehab, and the kid with surfer dude looks and attitude proves to be a wrestling star in his own right.

 

There's a certain inevitability in the plotting that unwinds like you might expect but McCarthy's interest is always in the characters (including a delicious turn by Bobby Cannavale as Giamatti's best friend and Jeffrey Tambor as the assistant coach) and their integrity. The fallout when truths are revealed are genuinely painful but McCarthy plays it less as a big dramatic showcase than a personal betrayal of trust that has to be earned all over again. This film's idea of a win-win ending skips the feel-good fantasy and delivers a story that feels honest and earned. Videodrone's pick of the week.

 

""Win Win," featuring a near-definitive likeable schlub lead performance from the great Paul Giamatti, is maybe the most deft and smoothly enjoyable picture to come from the writer-director, in spite of some of its more obvious ploys," writes MSN film critic Glenn Kenny. "The thing is, McCarthy's screenwriting is so supple, his characterizations so well-observed and sharply detailed, that none of the little story dovetails… seem at all contrived or forced."

 

The supplements are little slim here. There's no commentary or "making of" featurette and just the briefest of interviews carved down into promo-sized videos. At six minutes, "Tom McCarthy and Joe Tiboni discuss Win Win" is the most substantial of the supplements and the writers reveal a little of the personal inspiration for the film (they were high school buddies and teammates on the wrestling squad, wouldn't you know), while the other two pieces ("David Thompson at Sundance 2011," a profile of the young supporting actor, and "In Conversation with Tom McCarthy and Paul Giamatti at Sundance 2011") are under three-minutes apiece. There are no major revelations in the two very brief deleted scenes, but they are enjoyable little slices of character.

 

New Releases:

Tom McCarthy's "Win Win" (Fox), starring Paul Giamatti as small-town lawyer and family man, is a small film from with a big heart. Which sounds like a promotional cliché but it's true in the case of this low-key family comedy, a compassionate portrait of fallible people trying to do their best under pressure. This film's idea of winning skips the feel-good fantasy and delivers an story that feels honest and earned. Videodrone's pick of the week.

 

Jodie Foster's "The Beaver" (Summit), starring Mel Gibson as a suicidally depressed man who finds strength through a hand puppet, had the bad luck to be a hard-sell drama with black comedy and a leading man with a rocky reputation. And "Henry's Crime" (Fox), an indie caper comedy with Keanu Reeves, Vera Farmiga and James Caan, never quite comes to life (MSN film critic James Rocchi complains that it "dawdles when you want it to jump, skips when you want it to sizzle").

 

"Road to Nowhere" (Monterey) is Monte Hellman's first feature in 21 years and it's as dense, enigmatic and challenging as his early masterpieces, "The Shooting" and "Two-Lane Blacktop," a film about the making of a film where the layers of reality blur and merge in the most fascinating ways. The 79-year-old rebel brings a whole new beauty to digital photography. Videodrone's review is here.

 

The films of South Korean director Lee Chang-dong have won acclaim and awards all over the world for their intelligence, compassion and emotional power. This week his two most celebrated films arrive on DVD and Blu-ray: "Secret Sunshine" (Criterion), a devastating drama of anger and grace that won the Best Actress award at Cannes 2007, and the sublime "Poetry" (Kino), which earned Lee the Best Screenplay award at Cannes 2010. Videodrone reviews both here.

 

Plus Morgan Spurlock has fun with product placement in "Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold" (Sony), Jackie Chan is the hapless "Little Big Soldier" (Well Go USA), Jason Statham goes on an action "Blitz" (Millennium) and Norway reveals its greatest secret in "Troll Hunter" (Magnolia).

Browse the complete New Release Rack here

 

TV on DVD:

"The Event: The Complete Series" (Universal), the latest attempt to replicate the cosmic mystery and labyrinthine plotting of "Lost," did not quite turn out to be the event that NBC had hoped, and even after a mid-season adjustment, the epic alien invasion conspiracy thriller with the breakneck plotting momentum was cancelled after a single season (thus the subtitle "The Complete Series"). Videodrone explores the conspiracy here.

 

The best and the brightest are back to fight crime in the military-centered crime shows "NCIS: The Eighth Season" (Paramount), with Mark Harmon leading the a colorful team of naval investigators on the East Coast, and "NCIS Los Angeles: The Second Season" (Paramount), with Chris O'Donnell and LL Cool J chasing bad guys in the California sun. Videodrone enlists here.

 

Plus the backbiting continues in "Gossip Girl: The Complete Fourth Season" (Warner) and the animated "Angry Beavers: Seasons 1 & 2" (Shout! Factory) debuts.

Flip through the TV on DVD Channel Guide here

 

Cool, Classic and Cult:

"The Warped World Of Koreyoshi Kurahara (Eclipse Series 28)" (Criterion) is an introduction to another of the lively directors who flourished making crime thrillers, youth dramas and other genre films as the new blood hit the studios starting in the late 1950s. This set, from Criterion's budget-minded line, presents five jumped-up genre pictures made for Nikkatsu through the 1960s by Koreyoshi Kurahara. Videodrone reviews them here.

 

The original 1973 TV Movie "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" (Warner Archive) is duly re-released in the MOD format, this one with commentary! Videodrone shuts off the lights here.

"Sword and Sorcery Collection" (Shout! Factory) boxes up four previously-released films from the Roger Corman version of the sword and sandal genre, which includes heaping scoops of nudity.  Plus direct-to-DVD animated features "Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension" (Disney) and "Tom and Jerry & the Wizard of Oz" (Warner).

All of the Cool, Classic and Cult here

 

Blu-ray Debuts:

The DVD editions came out in June. Now "The Women in Cages Collection" (Shout! Factory), a collection of three Roger Corman-produced exploitation films of the seventies starring Pam Grier, debuts on Blu-ray. Videodrone's review is here.

 

"Swingers" (Lionsgate), the 1996 indie hit that launched the careers of Doug Liman, John Favreau (who wrote the script just to get a good role) and Vince Vaughn, gets its high-def debut. That is so money, baby.  Videodrone gets in the swing here. Also from the Miramax imprint is "Rounders" (Lionsgate), with Matt Damon and Edward Norton, and "Hostage" (Lionsgate), with Bruce Willis.

 

Peruse all the new Blu-rays here

The complete calendar of releases this week is after the jump:

 

Here's what's new on DVD and Blu-ray this week as featured on Videodrone

 

Hot Tips and Top Picks: DVDs for August 16

 

New Releases:

Sweet Jane: The new "Jane Eyre" is magnificent

Expert Witness: John Carpenter's "The Ward"

The New Release Rack: "The Conspirator," "Something Borrowed," a "Priest" and a "Queen" and more

 

TV on DVD:

"Outcasts" – Building the New Frontier

TV on DVD Channel Guide: "Dexter" takes on a protégé and Charlie Sheen joins "Spin City"

 

The Cool and the Collectible:

"Cul-De-Sac" – Waiting For Katelbach

"The Killing" – A Double Feature of Stanley Kubrick Noir

Cult Watch: "Breaking Glass" – A Punk Rock Success Story

Leafing through "David Holzman's Diary," plus Jack Cardiff and Dirk Bogarde

 

Blu-ray Debuts:

"The Big Lebowski: Limited Edition" Abides

Blu-ray Round-up: "Lebowksi" and the Muppets

 

Coming up next week:

"Win Win" (Fox)

"Henry's Crime" (Fox)

"The Beaver" (Summit)

"Road to Nowhere" (Monterey)

"Poetry" (Kino)

"Secret Sunshine" (Criterion)

"Troll Hunter" (Magnolia)

"Pom Wonderful Presents The Greatest Movie Ever Sold" (Sony)

"The Warped World Of Koreyoshi Kurahara (Eclipse Series 28)" (Criterion)

"The Event: The Complete Series" (Universal)

"Off the Map: The Complete Series" (Disney)

"Brothers and Sisters: The Complete Fifth and Final Season" (Disney)

"NCIS: Los Angeles – The Second Season" (Paramount)

"NCIS: The Eighth Season" (Paramount)

"Gossip Girl: The Complete Fourth Season" (Warner)

"Swingers" (Blu-ray) (Lionsgate)

"The Women in Cages Collection" (Blu-ray) (Shout! Factory)

 

For more upcoming releases, click here

 

Dude! It's here! Pour yourself a white Russian and kick back for the Blu-ray debut of "The Big Lebowski: Limited Edition" (Universal). It's not the most successful, famous or critically acclaimed film by the Coen Bros., but it surely has the most devoted fan base. Finally, the Dude abides in high definition. Videodrone's review is here.

 

With the return of the Muppets of the big screen this summer, two more Muppet movies debut on Blu-ray. The 1984 "The Muppets Take Manhattan" (Sony) is their "hey kids, let's put on a show" film, with the Muppet buddies trying to take their college review to Broadway. Joan Rivers, Gregory Hines, Linda Lavin, Art Carney, Dabney Coleman, James Coco, Brooke Shields, Liza Minnelli and Elliott Gould fill out the human guest star cast and Frank Oz directs. Features an interview with Jim Henson and "Muppetisms" from Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie and Pepe carried over from the DVD release.

 

"Muppets From Space" (Sony), from 1999, puts The Great Gonzo front and center as he searches for his roots and comes across evidence that he may be in outer space. Jeffrey Tambor is the government agent who takes this suggestion very seriously and F. Murray Abraham, Rob Schneider, Ray Liotta, David Arquette and Andie MacDowell make guest appearances. Features outtakes and a music video.

 

And the rest:

Jessica Lange and Gwyneth Paltrow star in the 1998 thriller "Hush" (Image) about a young bride and a disturbingly domineering mother-in-law. Vivica A. Fox and Morris Chestnut play out the war of the sexes in the comedy "Two Can Play That Game" (Image) and John Candy and Eugene Levy are "Armed and Dangerous" (Image) in the 1986 comedy co-starring a young Meg Ryan.

 

And, of course, the new Criterion editions of Roman Polanski's "Cul-De-Sac" and Stanley Kubrick's "The Killing" arrive on Blu-ray as well as DVD, and at the same suggested retail price (individual merchant discounts will vary).

 

Roman Polanski once cited "Cul-De-Sac" (Criterion), a sly little character piece set in an isolated medieval castle on the barren British coast, as his personal favorite of his films, and the closest he came to creating "pure cinema." Videodrone reviews the American home video debut of the wicked little psychodrama here.

 

"The Killing" (Criterion), Stanley Kubrick's hard-edged 1956 heist thriller, gets the Criterion treatment in a new edition on DVD and Blu-ray that also features his 1955 shadowy boxing drama "Killer's Kiss": A Kubrick double feature. Videodrone's review is here. Brian Gibson's 1980 "Breaking Glass" (Olive) is a terrific rock and roll drama that captures the music, the anger, the energy and the social atmosphere of Britain in the late seventies and the era of punk giving way to New Wave. Read Videodrone's review here.

 

Jim McBride's influential 1967 "David Holzman's Diary" (Lorber Films), a faux-documentary portrait of personal filmmaking as narcissistic self-involvement, debuts on DVD and Blu-ray following a recent theatrical revival. L.M. Kit Carson plays the eponymous hero, who is determined to find the soul of life by turning the camera on himself, his neighborhood and his girlfriend. "Holzman's a classic character, a sympathetic-if-pathe​tic study in generational solipsism, delivering imported French lyricism in clunky flatlands American—miscast by himself in his own life," wrote Village Voice film critic Nick Pinkerton in 2009, remarking that "The film remains more discussed than seen…." The DVD and Blu-ray debut may at least alleviate that somewhat. Features three bonus short films by Jim McBride: "My Girlfriend's Wedding" (1969), "Pictures from Life's Other Side" (1971) and "My Son's Wedding to My Sister-in-Law" (2008).

 

"Cardiff was the greatest color cameraman who ever lived," proclaims Boston Globe film critic Ty Burr in his review of the documentary "Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff" (Strand), which was released on DVD and Blu-ray last week but only just arrived at my doorstep. "The documentary itself isn’t a work of art but it doesn’t need to be — it just needs to frame Cardiff’s art for our appreciation and it does so handily…. the film’s ace in the hole is its own subject, who tells tales and offers insights like the gracious, engaged fellow he was." Features bonus interviews and additional scenes.

 

Dirk Bogarde:

It's quite the Dirk Bogarde retrospective this month. Following the release of his star-making "Doctor in the House" and sequels, we have the 1957 World War II mission thriller "Ill Met By Moonlight" (aka "Night Ambush") (Hen's Tooth), which was also the final collaboration of the great British filmmaking team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (aka "The Archers"). Based on a real-life event, it follows complications of a mission to kidnap a Nazi General on the occupied island of Crete. The Hen's Tooth release features the uncut British version of the film.

 

Dirk Bogarde also stars in "Campbell's Kingdom" (VCI), a 1957 drama about a dying man who travels to Canada to spend his last months searching for oil on land he inherited  from his grandfather, and in "Agent 8 ¾" (VCI), a 1964 spy spoof made in the early years of Bond-mania. Both are directed by longtime collaborator Ralph Thomas, who made "Doctor in the House" and its sequels (featured on Videodrone here). Both of these films, from VCI's Rank Collection, debut stateside on DVD and Blu-ray.

 

And the rest:

"The Gruffalo" (NCircle), a 40-minute animated short based on the children's book by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler and narrated by Helena Bonham Carter, was a 2011 Academy Award nominee for Best Animated Short. It played on the ABC Family channel in December 2010. The DVD includes "The Making of The Gruffalo" featurette.

 

Eugene Lourie, once Jean Renior's art director, directs the 1958 science fiction thriller "The Colossus of New York" (Olive), a kind of updated Frankenstein story about a giant robot with the transplanted brain of a brilliant scientist.

 

"Mystery Science Theater 3000: Red Zone Cuba" (Shout! Factory), Coleman Francis' bizarre film about convicts who volunteer to fight in the Bay of Pigs, and "Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Unearthly" (Shout! Factory), starring John Carradine and Tor Johnson, were long ago released by Rhino but have been out of print for years. Now these two fan-favorite episodes are available again in single-disc editions in a Shout! Factory website exclusive. Let the heckling begin.

"Battle: New York, Day II" (Vanguard) is an indie science fiction film that has nothing to do with the recent "Battle: Los Angeles" beyond the title.

 

Roman Polanski once cited "Cul-De-Sac" (Criterion), a sly little character piece set in an isolated medieval castle on the barren British coast, as his personal favorite of his films, and the closest he came to creating "pure cinema." It's also been the hardest of Polanski's films to see, at least in acceptable (and legitimate) editions. Criterion's release is the first official home video release in the U.S. and it is a superb disc and a welcome debut of a brilliant black comedy and a wicked little psychodrama.

 

It's only Polanski's second English language film, though he wrote the original script with Gerard Brach before making "Repulsion" and then rewrote it to fit the castle location. While it's not as demented as "Repulsion" or as engaging and enraging as "Chinatown," this is as assured and as perfectly crafted as anything in Polanski's career, a miniature where every facet offers multiple reflections. The dialogue is as assured at the filmmaking, and is both right and proper and weirdly warped around the situations, thanks to Donald Pleasance (as the owner of the castle) delivering his lines with twitchy cadences and nervous pauses Françoise Dorléac (as his young French wife) and Lionel Stander (as an American thug crashing their private party while hiding out from a robbery gone wrong) bringing in their idiosyncratic approach to the English language.

 

Essentially a three-hander (with guests—not always wanted—periodically dropping by), it's described in the liner notes as a "mental ménage-a-trois," which I suppose is as good a description of the shifting dynamics of power and submission as any. There's no real sexual tension (let alone sex) within this group but plenty of playing games and roles, from Pleasance donning a nightgown and eye-shadow in pre-invasion bedroom play with his wife to Stander posing as their surly servant when guests arrive.

 

"The Killing" (Criterion), Stanley Kubrick's hard-edged 1956 heist thriller, gets the Criterion treatment in a new edition on DVD and Blu-ray. It's not being sold as a double-feature but in essence it is. The highlight of the supplements is a remastered edition of Kubrick's 1955 shadowy boxing drama "Killer's Kiss," technically his second feature but the earliest feature that most of us are able to see. (Kubrick kept his debut feature, "Fear and Desire," essentially unavailable for decades and, but for the rare retrospective screening, his estate continues to keep it suppressed.)

"Killer's Kiss" is a stripped-down, low-budget urban thriller shot on the streets of New York City. Kubrick was a former photographer and he brings that eye to shooting the city, making the film austere and shadowy and atmospheric, just the kind of solution an ambitious young filmmaker would bring to the pulp story of a scruffy underdog boxer (Frank Silvera) in love with a gangster's girlfriend.

 

"The Killing," while still low budget by Hollywood standard, is much more elaborate production with a bigger cast, a complicated puzzle of a plot and a clever construction that slips around the timeline of a racetrack heist. The precision that would define Kubrick's great films is first seen here as is his mordant humor. Sterling Hayden stars as the mastermind and familiar film noir faces Coleen Gray, Vince Edwards, Jay C. Flippen, Marie Windsor and Ted De Corsia co-star, with stand-out supporting performances by Elisha Cook Jr. (perfectly pathetic as a mousy cuckold manipulated by the scheming Windsor) and Timothy Carey, standing out in a small role as a sharpshooter with a different kind of assignment.

 

Both have been available on DVD previously but Criterion's newly remastered DVD and Blu-ray editions are a marked improvement in clarity and detail. Both the DVD and Blu-ray also feature a new 21-minute video interview with producer James B. Harris, a new interview with Jim Thompson biographer Robert Polito about Thompson's work with Kubrick, a video appreciation of "Killer’s Kiss" with film critic Geoffrey O’Brien and about 25 minutes of interviews with Sterling Hayden excerpted from the French television series "Cinéma cinemas," plus a booklet.

 

Brian Gibson's 1980 "Breaking Glass" (Olive) is a terrific rock and roll drama set in Britain in the late 1970s. Hazel O'Connor, a singer/songwriter in her own right, stars as the driven artist who just wants to perform her music and Phil Daniels, fresh off "Quadrophenia" and tossing off the nervous energy of a street kid hustling his way into the music business, is equally driven as the self-styled manager who "discovers" her. "Sign a record contract and you become part of the machine," is Kate's mantra, and sure enough she predicts the cost of her own fame, but it's less a matter of selling out than simply getting tangled up in the sudden success. Daniels' Danny, meanwhile, is just as invested in her music as he is in her success. As the record company's control becomes more pervasive, he's often the one calling her out on compromises. Jonathan Pryce is marvelous as the band's partially deaf sax player and you spot future British stars Jim Broadbent, Richard Griffiths and Michael Kitchen in small bits.

 

Gibson's low-key film isn't free of music business melodrama and success story clichés but they remain backdrop to the characters and the texture of the era, from the dive clubs that the band plays to the social turmoil and racial violence of the era that she channels into her lyrics. O'Connor writes and performs her own songs, which are anthemic and aggressive and authentically straddle punk and New Wave (the soundtrack spawned a couple of hit songs, in fact) and her performance constantly reminds us that being a passionate artist doesn't stop her from being an affectionate, angry, frustrated, loyal and often confused human being. Gibson, who went on to direct Angela Basset to an Oscar nomination in "What's Love Got To Do With It," surely deserves at least some credit for that. He maintains a rough, spontaneous quality to the scenes on and off stage and avoids the obvious romantic clichés to build a more organic relationship between Kate and Danny. Less convincing is Jon Finch as a superstar producer who moves in on Kate professionally and personally.

 

Olive's DVD release presents the American cut of the film, which is about ten minutes shorter than the original British release. Having never seen it, I can't compare the two, but based on descriptions of the British cut (which carries the story beyond the freeze frame of this disc), the American cut sounds more ambiguous. No supplements.