Hannah and Her Sisters (DVD)

Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) starring Woody Allen, Michael Caine, Mia Farrow, Carrie Fisher, Barbara Hershey, Max von Sydow, Dianne Wiest, Julie Kavner. Directed by Woody Allen. One of the high points of Allen's filmmaking career depicts a group of neurotic New Yorkers with intertwined lives. It's an all-star production with scarcely a wrong note, complete with a happy ending. Grade: A-

Taxi Driver (DVD)

Taxi Driver (1976) starring Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Peter Boyle, Harvey Keitel. Critics may debate the merits of this movie, but what is indisputable is that the DVD lacks English subtitles for the hearing-impaired. About 25% of the dialogue is unintelligible to me. Grade: F

Repulsion (DVD)

Repulsion (1965) starring Catherine Deneuve. Directed by Roman Polanski. Young Frenchwoman named Carol (Deneuve), living in England, slips into madness -- one of Polanski's favorite themes. I saw this movie in 1965, and found it puzzling. Now I find it merely interesting -- not shocking, as I recalled. When you understand that Polanski's theme is insanity, everything makes sense, and yet of course no sense at all. Deneuve is quite beautiful, and plays disturbed convincingly. Grade: B

Coraline (DVD)

Coraline (2008) featuring the voices of Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher. A young girl named Coraline (Fanning) discovers a secret door that leads from her humdrum existence into another apartment, occupied by her "other mother" and "other father." Life with them seems like paradise -- until the true nature of the other mother (Hatcher) is revealed. Is Coraline dreaming, or is there a true evil spirit living in the other apartment? The stop-motion animation is marvelous and imaginative, and the story is a true original. Grade: B+

My So-Called Life (DVD)

My So-Called Life (1994) starring Claire Danes, Jared Leto. This old TV series is about a junior in high school (Danes) and her teenage angst and lust. Unfortunately, this disc lacks the all-important feature of subtitles for the hearing-impaired. Grade: F

The Unknown Woman (DVD)

The Unknown Woman (2006) starring Kseniya Rappoport. A young woman named Irena (Rappoport) escapes the sex trade in her native Ukraine and goes to settle in Italy. She manages to worm her way into a job as a servant to a wealthy couple, who treat her well but whom she plots to rob. Then one night, while walking home from work, she is savagely beaten by two strangers in Santa Claus suits. If this seems to be shaping up as a weird movie, that would be an accurate perception. But in the end, it all comes together and makes sense. This is a beautiful, if strange, motion picture. In Italian, with English subtitles. Grade: A-

Knowing (DVD)

Knowing (2008) starring Nicolas Cage, Rose Byrne. A science teacher (Cage) comes into possession of a list of numbers, written in 1959, which predicts all of the major disasters of the past 50 years. But wait -- it predicts three more disasters, one of which means the end of all life on Earth. The premise is preposterous, but then this is a science fiction movie. Oddly enough, some of the plot elements which seem most far-fetched turn out to be central to the story, and in the end it all makes a kind of sense. My objection to the movie is that there is too much of it, and a lot of stuff has been thrown in which merely confuses us without ultimately contributing to the forward thrust of the film. This might be one to see again and reconsider, but for now: Grade: B-

Bridge to Terabithia (DVD)

Bridge to Terabithia (2007) starring AnnaSophia Robb, Josh Hutcherson, Zooey Deschanel, Robert Patrick. New girl in town (Robb) teaches local boy (Hutcherson) how to use vivid imagination to better deal with poverty at home and bullies at school. Then (spoiler alert!) tragedy strikes, and the boy must learn to deal with the reality of death -- which he does in his own way. It's quite a jolting turn in what starts out as a fantasy movie, and I don't think it entirely works (unless you count jerking tears as working). I think Disney's promotion of this film was dishonest. They got me once with "Bambi" (who knew Bambi's mom would get killed?) and now with "Bridge to Terabithia." Grade: B

Lonely Are the Brave (DVD)

Lonely Are the Brave (1962) starring Kirk Douglas, Gena Rowlands, Micheal Kane, Walter Matthau, Carroll O'Connor. Douglas stars as Jack Burns, a cowboy who can't quite adjust to highways and fences, airplanes and radios. He breaks into jail to help a friend escape, only to find that the friend doesn't want to take the risk. So he breaks out by himself and goes on the run on horseback, pursued by men in Jeeps and helicopters. Who will triumph, man or technology? Good subtitles. Grade: B

The Long Riders (DVD)

The Long Riders (1980) starring David, Keith and Robert Carradine; James and Stacy Keach; Dennis and Randy Quaid; Nicholas and Christopher Guest; Pamela Reed. Director Walter Hill presents a bloody retelling of the story of the post-Civil War James-Younger gang. Bungling law enforcement makes heroes of the outlaws, but their doom is inevitable. When they travel from Missouri to Minnesota to rob a bank, the "squareheads" are ready for them.

The movie is OK, but this DVD lacks the indispensable feature of English subtitles for the hearing-impaired. For that reason it gets an F.

Platoon (DVD)

Platoon (1986) starring Charlie Sheen, Willem Dafoe, Tom Berenger. This is an excellent movie, but the DVD lacks the all-important feature of subtitles for the hearing-impaired. For that reason the disc gets an F.

Midnight Cowboy (DVD)

Midnight Cowboy (1969) starring Jon Voight, Dustin Hoffman, Brenda Vaccaro. Young Joe Buck (Voight) takes the bus from Texas to New York City, hoping to fulfill his dream of becoming a gigolo. He soon goes broke; and he soon meets Ratso Rizzo (Hoffman), a low-life con man with a limp and a persistent cough. Although they clash at first, they gradually become unlikely friends. They rip off a produce stand together, and later they attend a wacky New York-style happening/party, where Joe meets his first real customer (Vaccaro). Just when Joe's career is taking off, however, Ratso's illness takes a turn for the worse. This is a brilliant movie, and it packs a terrific dramatic punch. It won Oscars for Best Picture and Director of 1969. The soundtrack is memorable, too. Grade: A

Arrested Development (DVD)

Arrested Development, Season 1, Disc 1 (2003) starring Jason Bateman, Jeffrey Tambor, Jessica Walter, Portia di Rossi, Will Arnett, Tony Hale, David Cross, Michael Cera. The dysfunctional Bluth family suffer a setback when the patriarch of the clan (Tambor) is arrested for defrauding investors. Michael, the oldest son (Bateman), takes over and tries to keep the family together, but this assortment of loonies makes that effort an uphill task. There are many funny bits on this disc, some of them laugh-out-loud funny, but it doesn't quite live up to the critical raves. Grade: B+

Scrubs (DVD)

Scrubs, The Complete First Season: Disc 1 (2001) starring Zach Braff, Donald Faison, Sarah Chalke, Judy Reyes, John C. McGinley, Neil Flynn. This half-hour comedy about young doctors and hospital life starts with Day 1 of J.D. Dorian's (Braff) career as a medical practitioner. His friends include Turk (Faison) and Elliot Reid (Chalke). This show really started hitting its stride around Episode 4, with some laugh-out-loud fantasies from the mind of Dr. Dorian. It's one of the best comedies I've ever seen, although it never did terribly well in the Nielsen ratings. The subtitles on this DVD are excellent; they even include the lyrics to songs on the soundtrack. Grade: A

The Friends of Eddie Coyle (DVD)

The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) starring Robert Mitchum, Peter Boyle. Small-time crook Eddie "Fingers" Coyle (Mitchum) is facing jail time, with three kids and a wife waiting at home. It's a time when phones have rotary dials, and no one owns a cell phone or a personal computer, because they haven't been invented yet. All the cars are '60s or '70s models, naturally, because the film was made in 1973. I found the nostalgia angle more engaging than the crime story, which after all is pretty much out of date. Still, Mitchum is a powerful presence on the screen, and the drama of how he tries to avoid serving jail time is interesting to watch. Unfortunately, the finale falls a little flat. Grade: B

Raise the Red Lantern (DVD)

Raise the Red Lantern (1991) starring Gong Li. After her father's death, 19-year-old Songlian (Gong Li) marries a much older man, becoming the fourth concubine in the man's household. She finds herself in competition with the other mistresses of the house for the master's attention -- and the privileges that go with it. The interplay of personalities among the four "sisters" -- and Songlian's inability to adjust to life in the structured environment -- make for a subtly woven tapestry of a movie that can shock as well as entertain. In Chinese, with English subtitles. Grade: A

True Blood (DVD)

True Blood, Season 1, Disc 2 (2008) starring Anna Paquin, Stephen Moyer. This disc contains Episodes 3 and 4 of the HBO series about telepathic Louisiana waitress Sookie (Paquin), who falls for vampire Bill Compton (Moyer). In Episode 3, Sookie meets some of Bill's evil vampire friends. Unlike Bill, they enthusiastically feed on the blood of humans. But they stay away from Sookie when Bill tells them that she is his. In Episode 4, Sookie's brother Jason gets in trouble when another woman he slept with is found murdered. Sookie, hoping to clear her brother's name, asks Bill to take her to a vampire bar called Fangtasia. When they are stopped by a patrol cop on their way back from the bar, Bill demonstrates his considerable powers of "persuasion." Overall, I found this disc less interesting than the first disc of the season. It seems less mysterious and more cliched. Grade: B-