DVDs, 1/6.

By David Hudson on 01/06/2009

As you'll see in the roundups below, one release towers above all others this week: "A new double-disc set from Sony, 'The Films of Michael Powell,' brings a pair of impeccably restored movies by this pre-eminent British director," writes Dave Kehr in the New York Times. "One is a completely assured work from the height of his big-budget British period, the 1946 film 'A Matter of Life and Death' (retitled 'Stairway to Heaven' when Universal first released it in the United States). The other is the 1969 'Age of Consent,' a ragged independent production from Powell's years of wandering the desert of international co-production, after the scandal of 'Peeping Tom' (1960) effectively ended his career in England." More (plus linkage) from Sean Axmaker.

[Photos: "A Matter of Life and Death," Universal Pictures, 1946; "The Bravados," 20th Century Fox, 1958]

Michael Atkinson on "Matter" here at IFC: "As lovely a homefront British movie as was ever made during the war years, the movie strikes a special note of beleaguered, noble stubbornness; [David] Niven's persona could be read as London-can-take-it pridefulness boiled down to a savory cosmic-love reduction." Also reviewed: "[A]fter many darkling family tales and adaptations of Pirandello, [Marco] Bellocchio has mellowed into a ruminative, absurdist autumnal mood, and 'The Wedding Director' is his most sheerly enjoyable film in years. The movie has a pleasantly Rivette-like dimension to it - however much we see, we're always aware of something unmentioned and mysterious going on at the fringes of the story."

Aaron Hillis at GreenCine Daily on "Ping Pong Playa": "Underrated at the time of its release last fall, the first narrative film from erudite documentarian Jessica Yu ('In the Realms of the Unreal,' 'Protagonist) couldn't have been a more unexpected project: a squeaky clean sports comedy that self-mockingly riffs on Chinese-American culture by way of hip-hop."

"The French do love their Douglas Sirk, it would seem," writes Glenn Kenny in the Auteurs' Notebook. "Here in America, acquiring a Region 1 Sirk library involves a bit of cherry-picking... Whereas in France, the adventurous label Carlotta offers eight Sirk titles from the Universal period, in box sets, even, and pairs each of the films with a disc's worth of extras." And "devotees of the German-born master will want everything in the second set, a fantastic mix of two underseen masterpieces and two fascinating albeit not fully realized works."

"The era of responsible westerns may have ended with 'The Bravados,'" writes John McElwee.

"Ryan Harper's twisty and icky desert-set horror flick 'Circulation' is now available on DVD via Cinema Epoch," notes Mike Everleth. "I originally reviewed the film in May '08 and I'm glad to see that it's already available to a wider audience."

Discussion of Curtis Hanson's "Bad Influence" whips along at the Film of the Month Club.

For Nelson Kim, writing at Hammer to Nail, "Slacker" is about "the conflict between ambition and indolence, the ceaseless shuffling of identities and philosophies, the sense that - as the passenger played by [Richard] Linklater muses in the opening scene - on any day, at any time, an infinite variety of lives might be yours for the living."

At the SpoutBlog, Kevin Kelly explains why, in his humble opinion, Criterion's released the "Best and Worst Version Ever" of Wes Anderson's "Bottle Rocket."

DVD roundups: Sean Axmaker, Richard Brody (New Yorker), Paul Clark (Screengrab), DVD Talk, Guru, Harry Knowles and PopMatters.

Tags: Spirit Awards