Notable New Releases
WALL-E (THREE DISC SPECIAL EDITION) (Disney) As a one-robot show, the first 40 minutes of WALL-E are charming enough. As a vision of what Alan Weisman might call “the world without us,” this section is devastating — think of a Chuck Jones cartoon art-directed by Edward Burtynsky. Even after its shift to a more conventionally antic, allusive mode (Silent Running meets 2001 meets Children of Men), Andrew Stanton’s robots-are-people-too saga retains its underlying intelligence and manages to critique corporate mass pacification tactics while deploying them brilliantly. It probably says more about 2008 than it does about the relative merits of Pixar’s latest (there’s nothing here to rival the Proustian punchline of Ratatouille), but WALL-E just may be the American movie of the year. Extras: deleted scenes, behind-the-scenes, making-of, “BnL shorts,” digital copy of the film and so very much more.
TROPIC THUNDER (UNRATED DIRECTOR’S CUT) (DreamWorks) Ben Stiller’s late-summer smash was hardly the lacerating Hollywood satire its supporters claim (and sorry, but Tom Cruise + Flo Rida was pretty painful) but it’s still worth seeing for Robert Downey Jr.’s plain-brilliant performance as an ambitious method actor who disappears so deeply into his fraudulent, clichéd character — a standard issue African-American GI-flick grunt — that he creates a real person out of retrograde racial clichés. If there’s any justice, he’ll get an Oscar nomination. Extras: deleted/extended scenes, alternate ending, multiple featurettes, director/cast commentary, MTV Movie Award sketch, more.
Also This Week:
ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD (Image) With all due apologies to Happy Feet, Batman Returns and that movie narrated by Morgan Freeman, Werner Herzog’s latest portrait of questing kooks in extreme conditions features the single most memorable penguin in cinematic history. Extras: commentary, featurettes, interview between Jonathan Demme and Werner Herzog.
SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS 2 (Warner) With all due apologies to nothing, this second round of girl-you’ll-be-a-woman-soon adventures features the most supernaturally elastic pair of jeans in cinematic history. Extras: “Suckumentary,” deleted scenes, interviews, more.
Out November 25
A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift Of All!, Fred Claus, Hancock, Space Chimps, and Daryl Hall and John Oates — Live at the Troubadour (insert your own Yacht Rock joke immediately).