DVDs, 8/1.

DK Holm follows up on his previous column with a roundup of takes on the latest DVD releases - in what is admittedly a quiet week for new discs. Still, with V, Olivier, and Lorre, there are a few treats here for cinephiles. Or are they? Read on.

Of the 35 or so DVDs released on this Tuesday, August 1st, in Region 1, James McTeigue's Wachowski Brothers-produced adaptation of Alan Moore and David Lloyd's serialized graphic novel V for Vendetta has received the most commentary - as if the original theatrical release hadn't already burned up a few thousand gallons of ink and several billion megabytes. Dawn Taylor of the DVD Journal liked the movie and felt "it's too bad that Moore dislikes the picture so much, because it's the best, most faithful film adaptation of his work yet - it's dark, stylish, and slick." Glenn Erickson, the DVD Savant, liked the extras, noting that they are "better and more thoughtful than the EPK filler that often clogs new release special editions." Rich Rosell at Digitally Obsessed does the service of quoting from the supplements, contrasting director McTeigue in one making-of speaking "delicately of having to condense Moore and Lloyd's original work to 'make it more film-y'" with producer Joel Silver "who not so eloquently refers to the graphic novel as 'a mess.'" One of the few dissenters was the reviewer at Current Film.com, finding that McTeigue hadn't "fully created the kind of grim, oppressive mood and atmosphere that the movie truly needed."

Also out in R1 DVD is Fox's box of four Mr Moto movies with Peter Lorre, which Dave Kehr at the New York Times found fascinating:

The Mr Moto series is unusual because it is largely the work of one filmmaker, Norman Foster, who directed six of the eight films in the series and contributed to the screenplays of several. Foster, whose rich and fascinating life story is recounted by a documentary by John Cork included in the box set, was a world traveler turned Broadway actor who came to Hollywood with his wife, Claudette Colbert, and worked as an actor for several years ... He became a director after a severe beating left him feeling too disfigured for front-of-the-camera work. As a visual stylist, he liked crowded, busy frames, full of décor details and animated by the constant crossing of background extras. If he isn't always able to lift the stock characters into more fully developed human figures, he is able to negotiate his way through complicated, occasionally illogical intrigues while maintaining a quick rhythm and a clear line of action.

In addition, Gary Tooze of DVD Beaver offers some helpful information about the set, including the fact that "Fox spent over $2 million restoring all of their Charlie Chan and Mr Moto films," and pointing out that the Moto prints "were not in as bad a shape as the Chan ones and look quite good."

While he's at it, Kehr settles the hash of Laurence Olivier, author of the three disc set from Criterion, Olivier's Shakespeare, asserting that "Olivier might have been a great actor, but he was one of the klutziest directors who ever lived, and seeing these films, with their static arrangements of actors, pointlessly peripatetic camera movements and bizarre framing, makes one appreciate again the deep commitment to cinema represented by the work of Edward D. Wood." Kehr's views are echoed by Jon Danziger at Digitally Obsessed who says of Henry V that "Olivier has no use for subtlety."

In perhaps the wittiest review of the day, Eamonn McCusker, over at DVD Times, pauses in mid-review of Tanit Jitnukul and Sathit Praditsarn's Thailandian zombie film Hell (Narok) to enunciate a disquisition on two wholly different directors:

'Hell is only a word...the reality is much, much worse!' Paul W.S. Anderson may have had something else in mind when he brought those words in Event Horizon but, as fate would have it, he was quite correct. Hell may only be a word but this film is utter bollocks, much, much worse than any evidence the prosecution may wish to bring to the court as regards Anderson and Uwe Boll. Indeed, coming after a viewing of Hell, I have to hand it to Uwe Boll. Much as I was somewhat derisory towards his Bloodrayne, his film, in comparison to this, masterwork [sic], the outstanding creation of a mind unparalleled in modern cinema and a moment of particular genius in a career littered with them. Granted, his extras do tend to loiter and hack rather disinterestedly at the corpses and one particular effect was, shall we say, haphazard but nothing, absolutely nothing in Bloodrayne is as woefully unimpressive as Hell. Not even Billy Zane!

Ouch.