DVD Reviews & Releases | MiamiHerald.com

DVD HIGHLIGHTS

Memories of war, shopaholic confessions

These are some of this week's releases: Waltz with Bashir: Based on actual events, this groundbreaking animated film won a Golden Globe and was up for an Oscar as best foreign-language film in 2008. Filmmaker Ari Folman, an Israeli veteran of the first Lebanon War, encounters an old friend suffering from nightmares of the conflict. Wondering why his own memories are full of gaps, he reconnects with old friends and confronts the horrors of war. Director: Ari Folman. 2008, R, 87 minutes, Sony. DVD...
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Bergman classic gets high-tech treatment

Max Von Sydow's chess game with Death is one of the most iconic scenes in all of cinema, and rarely has it looked better than the way it appears on the Criterion Collection's Blu-ray release of The Seventh Seal ($40, also on DVD).
WOODSTOCK ON DVD

Boxed set's a virtual festival

Imagine reliving the Woodstock festival by popping the Oscar-winning documentary of the same name into your Blu-ray DVD player, then syncing it with those of other nostalgia-seekers around the world and chatting online while Janis, Jimi and Country Joe take the stage.
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Up close and personal with the cast of `The Shield'

Like extended family gatherings you look forward to attending, each of the 13 episodes on the four-disc The Shield Season 7: The Final Act (Sony, $60) comes with a commentary track by the cast and crew. The tracks not only give you an excuse to revisit the series' memorable final year, but illustrate just how harmonious a unit the show's creators had become.
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Secrets of 'Revolutionary Road' revealed

New DVD releases due in stores on Tuesday: Revolutionary Road: On the audio commentary track accompanying his film, director Sam Mendes states that his first cut was much more ''reverential'' to Richard Yates' 1961 novel but that he eventually reedited the movie -- and took a few liberties with the structure -- to help give it identity and feel.
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DVD reviews | Digging around for relics, a missing scientist

New DVD releases due in stores on Tuesday: The Devil's Tomb (2009): When the scientist (Ron Perlman) in charge of a top-secret Middle East archaeological site suddenly goes missing in this action-packed, apocalyptic thriller, a super-elite military unit led by Captain Mack (Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr.) is drafted to launch a search-and-rescue effort. But Mack and his men don't get far into the cradle of civilization before they are confronted by an ancient, perhaps otherworldly evil lying beneath...
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The old 'Star Trek' films get the hi-def treatment

Every reboot of a longstanding movie franchise brings a home video component,and Star Trek is no exception. With the new film currently drawing huge theater crowds, Paramount Pictures has dusted off the first six Trek films and given them their hi-def debut on Blu-ray.
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Clint Eastwood's firstborn for '08 hits the shelves

The first of two films released in 2008 directed by Clint Eastwood, Changeling didn't do as well at the box office as Gran Torino, which has become one of Eastwood's all-time biggest hits. But Changeling fared much better with Oscar voters, who awarded it three nominations, for Best Actress (for Angelina Jolie), Cinematography and Art Direction. Take that, Torino.
DVD & BLU-RAY

Coming on Tuesday

Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands Kyle XY: Second Season Nip/Tuck: Fifth Season The Secret Life of the American Teenager: Season One Surfer, Dude