The scoop on DVD releases for May

By Robert Newton

May 4

ELEPHANT [R]

Framed as a belabored and needlessly repetitive "day in the life of an American high school", Gus Van Sant's tedious anti-statement is intended as an indictment of the kind of society that could produce the kind of soulless refuse that would plan a deadly, epic attack like Columbine.

THE LAST SAMURAI [R]

Glory writer-director Edward Zwick tells finely the story of drunken, war-addled Union hero Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise), hired to bring Japan's army into the late 19th century. Captured by the gang of renegade Samurai he was called upon to defeat, he comes to appreciate the centuries-old traditions of these rustic, honorable folk.

THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE [PG-13]

With no dialogue to speak of (forgive the pun), writer-director Sylvain Chomet combines the calculated, silent film sensibility of Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd with the hyperkinetic and resourceful one-upmanship that made Warner Brothers' animated shorts just that much better than Disney's in the 1930's and '40's.

May 11

THE FOG OF WAR [PG-13]

Former Secretary of Defense (under Kennedy and Johnson) Robert McNamara spins grimly the mechanics of a world gone mad in The Thin Blue Line director Errol Morris's Oscar-winning documentary.

IN AMERICA [R]

Seldom is the actual pain of grief portrayed so perfectly as in My Left Foot director Jim Sheridan's staggeringly beautiful and intimate Oscar-nominated drama about an Irish family trying to outrun their dark past.

May 18

MIRACLE [PG]

This Disney-produced drama starring Disney chestnut Kurt Russell, about the U.S. Olympic hockey team's dizzying 4-3 win over the seemingly invincible Soviets at the 1980 Winter Games, is painfully predictable, and therein lies its charm.

TORQUE [PG-13]

A biker, played by Noah Henderson of The Ring, is framed by the brother of another biker, played by rap pioneer Ice Cube (Barbershop 2: Back In Business) in this Fast and the Furious on Day-Glo hogs.

YOU GOT SERVED [PG-13]

In what could very well be titled Breakin' 3: Electric Moneytree, a starry-eyed "crew" sets their eyes on the $50,000 prize in a dance competition. Rivalries and friendships are tested, there is some dancing, and uncool DVD renters reel from the lack of subtitles in this melodrama set in a largely manufactured cultural underground.

May 25

CLUB DREAD [R]

Broken Lizard, the team of Colgate University improv whizzes behind the surprisingly funny Super Troopers (2001), chime in with one of the worst comedies — no, make that worst movies — of all time, about a series of murders on a tropical resort island.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: RETURN OF THE KING: SPECIAL EDITION [PG-13]

Kiwi wunderkind Peter Jackson's latest failure of form — but nonetheless this year's Oscar darling — is a third act spectacle all the way. Predictably epic, the story unfolds like clockwork, only the clock desperately needs winding, as Jackson's theatrical cut runs a nearly criminal 201 minutes. The "Extended Edition" (as if), which will be released on DVD later this year (a shady practice called "double-dipping") will run nearly an hour longer.