DVD 5/27/08: Cassandra’s Dream, Rambo, Jackass Presents: Mat Hoffman’s Tribute to Evel Knievel, Mike Birbiglia: What I Should Have Said Was Nothing: Tales From My Secret Public Journal, The Air I Breathe, Rambo: The Complete Collector’s Set, Come Drink With Me, Heroes of the East, A Panda is Born and Baby Panda’s First Year
Cassandra’s Dream (PG-13, 2007, Weinstein Company)
Brothers Ian (Ewan McGregor) and Terry (Colin Farrell) don’t much look alike. Spend a little time with “Cassandra’s Dream,” though, and it’s easy to spot the resemblance. Both talk a game that’s far bigger than either of them, both take financial and personal risks that they’re fully aware are potentially very stupid, and both have the kind of dreams that make taking those stupid risks feel like something of a necessity akin to most people’s ideas of eating and sleeping. And while neither Ian nor Terry looks much like Uncle Howard (Tom Wilkinson), either, it’s hardly a stretch to see from where these notions came. Now, with Ian and Terry needing a bit of a favor from Uncle Howard and Uncle Howard needing much more than a bit of a favor in return, all this out-of-the-box living is coming to a head. Though further plot specifics will be kept out of this review for the purpose of actually enjoying “Dream,” it’s safe to say that anyone who has seen their fair share of mysteries and dramas will recognize pretty much every theme contained within. It’s a classic film with classic ideas, and even the twists are reliable enough that some won’t even label them as such. Were “Dream” reliant on these things, that might be a problem, but it’s not. Good characters are this film’s chief priority, with good dialogue coming in a close second, and “Dream” ably delivers both in abundance. The plot, though no slouch by any standard, merely provides the glue.
No extras.
Rambo: 2-Disc Special Edition (R, 2008, Lions Gate)
Really, does it matter? Does it matter what John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) is doing in Thailand, why he’s a man of few words and many thousand-mile stares, or what has prompted him to come to the aid of a group of relief workers in the middle of war-torn Burma? No. What matters is that it’s been 20 years since “Rambo III,” and in that time, American movies and moviegoers have vastly raised the ceiling for how much blood a film can toss your way in 91 minutes’ time. Stallone isn’t getting any younger, people love nostalgia, and far be it from any of us to deny our hero a comeback after “Rocky Balboa” proved not to be a disaster. So here is “Rambo,” a maelstrom of bloody arrows, torn limbs and headshots that so lazily tries to cover up its intentions with a message that you briefly wonder if it’s a parody. Sorry, no dice: It really is as mindless as it appears on the surface. And you know what? That’s fine. Though it’s a shame to see what has come of a franchise that began so brilliantly with “First Blood,” that ship sailed two decades ago. “Rambo” wants purely to be a dumb action film that doesn’t use computer animation and epic set pieces as a crutch, and it succeeds gamely at being exactly that. If you can check your brain at the door and are thirsty for some nostalgic Kool-Aid, there’s nothing “Rambo” can do that should truly let you down.
Extras: Digital copy for portable media players, Stallone commentary, deleted scenes, six behind-the-scenes features.
Jackass Presents: Mat Hoffman’s Tribute to Evel Knievel (NR, 2008, MTV)
Evel Knievel’s life, influence and appetite left a mark on a wide swath of people, and it’s hardly a surprise that BMX star Mat Hoffman, whom Knievel counted as a friend, sits among them. Hoffman and a handful of faces from the extreme sports and “Jackass” world pay tribute as they best know how: heading out to a barren field, setting up some ridiculous ramps, and attempting to break whatever motocross and stunt-riding records they can overturn while the cameras are rolling. It’s a most fitting tribute, in no small part due to how much “Mat Hoffman’s Tribute to Evel Knievel” resembles the Knievel specials that occasionally ran on network television whenever Evel would attempt to reach a new plane of stunt-related ridiculousness. The difference, of course, is that this time, you know rather than merely fear that someone at some point will require a trip to the hospital. “Tribute” cobbles together a nice mix of superhuman pursuits and subhuman stupidity, delivering pretty much exactly what you’d expect from a production starring this lot. The only real disappointment: At 47 minutes, the main program is short. The DVD offers a nice array of extras, but it would have been nicer to see some form of extended main program for this release. Johnny Knoxville hosts (and, naturally, gets involved in some all-too-painful way).
Extras: Thoughts of Knievel, behind-the-scenes feature, outtakes, tattoo montage, Hoffman retrospective, photo gallery, music videos.
Mike Birbiglia: What I Should Have Said Was Nothing: Tales From My Secret Public Journal (NR, 2008, Shout Factory)
As far as his own best interests go, Mike Birbiglia is right: What he should have said was nothing. But he didn’t, and the result is one of the handful of classic stories that comprise the meat of this really smart standup special. Where other comics trade in consternation and angst, Birbiglia dabbles in wide-eyed social awkwardness — a mostly well-meaning disposition that occasionally twists his tongue and gets him into trouble he never intended to find. Birbiglia’s ways have convinced him to go to therapy, but is it too selfish to hope that the sessions don’t change him? Over 60 minutes, Birbiglia covers such topics as his parents, the dreaded porn virus, and how the Iraq war isn’t terribly different from an overmatched dad trying to build a deck. (Don’t worry; “Nothing” briefly wades in politics, but it doesn’t stick around too long.) But the highlight of “Nothing” easily is a pair of stories from which this special primarily gets its name, including a doozy of a tale involving an awards banquet, a sportswriter and pitching great Dennis Eckersley.
Extras: 26-minute encore from the same night, half-hour behind-the-scenes feature.
The Air I Breathe (R, 2007, Image/ThinkFilm)
“The Air I Breathe” is four films in one — stories about a man tired of playing it safe (Forest Whitaker), a henchman with a gift (Brendan Fraser), a doctor who loves someone he can’t have (Kevin Bacon), and a pop princess (Sarah Michelle Gellar) whose travails affect and are affected by what happens to the other three characters. Though they overlap, each character’s moment of focus has a clear beginning and end, which allows “Breathe” to come off as more interesting and entertaining than it actually probably is. That certainly isn’t news to the film’s ear: It has important things to say and, from the arguably pretentious opening line, transcendent messages it wants you to remember long after the credits roll. But while the cast is worth watching, the characters lack any such ability to endure. Their lives are too empty. And for all that perceives to happen in “Breathe,” little actually changes — a point accidentally nailed home by a clever ending that brings it full circle. If there’s a hopeful message here, it’s too suffocated by tales of despair, pettiness and the ironies of modern-day isolation to resonate on any credible level. The bad, sadly, rings far more authentic than the good.
Extras: Crew commentary, deleted scenes, outtakes.
Worth a Mention
— “Rambo: The Complete Collector’s Set” (R, various years, Lions Gate): In case you demand more macho in a box than “Rambo” alone provides, this six-disc tin box set should do the trick. Includes previously-released Ultimate Editions of the first three films and the aforementioned special edition of “Rambo.”
— “Come Drink With Me” (NR, 1966, Dragon Dynasty) and “Heroes of the East” (NR, 1979, Dragon Dynasty): Two Asian cinema classics receive the Dragon Dynasty treatment. Extras on each include commentary, interviews, behind-the-scenes features and trailer galleries.
— “A Panda is Born and Baby Panda’s First Year” (NR, various years, Animal Planet): A pair of Animal Planet specials from 2005 and 2007, respectively, comprise this 84-minute look at the birth and formative moments of a panda bear named Tai Shan. No extras beyond the two programs.