Susan’s dvd update for week of July 16:
Combining investigative reporting with personal experience, Reed Cowan’s “8: The Mormon Proposition” is an impassioned documentary about California’s Proposition 8 amendment, which restricts marriage to heterosexual couples, and the anti-gay efforts of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. No matter where you stand on gay marriage, seeing this will give you a broader definition of family values.
Pierce Brosnan, Susan Sarandon and Carey Mulligan star in “The Greatest,” Shana Feste’s melodramatic, awkwardly-edited study of a family’s emotional devastation after the death of a ‘perfect’ teenage boy, whom everyone remembers as “the greatest.”
From A&E/Lifetime comes four made-for-DVD features. “What If God Were the Sun?” a poignant tale of faith, hope, love and loss, based on the novel of the same name by John Edward, featuring Lacey Chabert (“Mean Girls”) and Gena Rowlands (“The Notebook”), pondering the question: is there life after death? “The Dive From Clausen’s Pier” is a coming-of -age tale, based on Ann Packer’s best-seller, in which Michelle Trachtenberg (“Buffy The Vampire Slayer”) realizes that she’s no longer in love with her childhood sweetheart when a tragic diving accident leaves him paralyzed, and “The Other Woman” casts Josie Bisset as a devoted second wife who feels threatened by a sexy, younger woman. Kim Basinger finds herself feeling alone and restless in her 20-year marriage in “The Mermaid Chair” and “Plain Truth” is a riveting, multi-layered drama featuring Mariska Hargitay (“Law & Order: SVU”) as a tenacious criminal lawyer who infiltrates a small Pennsylvania Amish community where her client stands accused of murder.
Jennifer Aniston teams with Gerard Butler in “The Bounty Hunter,” playing a reporter just about to crack a murder cover-up/corruption case when her boorish, bitter, bounty hunting ex-husband decides he’s going to turn her in; bail on this obnoxious comedy.
PICK OF THE WEEK: Noah Baumbach’s serio-neurotic comedy “Greenberg” stars Ben Stiller as a curmudgeonly 40ish NYC rocker just released from a mental hospital who seeks refuge in his brother’s (Chris Messina) sprawling Hollywood Hills home and romances his sibling’s disarmingly honest personal assistant (Greta Gerwig).