Switching gears completely, Peter Hedges’ Dan in Real Life proved to be one of 2007’s comic delights. While this is only the director’s second film, he has been charming us for the better part of two decades with his literate screenplays for What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, A Map of the World, About a Boy and PPieces of April (his directorial debut).

Like his earlier screenplays, this one has a strong central character surrounded by a group of quirky, idiosyncratic and ultimately lovable secondary ones. Steve Carell, in his best role to date, is the widowed father of three daughters who, on a break from a family reunion, meets a charming woman in a bookstore with whom he becomes immediately infatuated. This being a movie, of course she’s going to turn out to be his playboy brother’s latest conquest. From there the film provides the usual complications along with some surprising stuff on the way to its inevitable conclusion.

The film’s strong cast includes Juliette Binoche as the woman in the book store; Dane Cook and Norbert Leo Butz as Carell’s brothers; John Mahoney and Dianne Wiest as his parents; Alison Pill, Brittaney Robertson and Marlene Lawston as his daughters; Amy Ryan as a sister-in-law; Matthew Morrison as the local law enforcement officer; and Emily Blunt as a fun-loving plastic surgeon.

Family figures in two other 2007 films recently released on DVD.

In Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited, three brothers, Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody and Jason Schwartzman, journey across India in search of their mother (Anjelica Huston) who, since the death of their father a year earlier, has become a nun and renounced the world, if not them. Complications ensue, and the brothers renew their bond. Sight gags abound, including one involving Bill Murray in a cameo.

Natalie Portman also has a cameo. She and Schwartzman star in a short called Hotel Chevalier, which is actually a prologue to the film, and really part of it. It sets up Schwartzman’s character as well as Portman’s for the main film.

Kirsten Sheridan won an Oscar nomination for the screenplay she wrote for In America with her father Jim, and sister Naomi. A director for several years now, August Rush is her most accessible film to date. The film is about an 11-year-old child prodigy, played by Freddie Highmore, who has been raised in an orphanage but is convinced that his parents are out there and will come to him through music. Unbeknownst to him, his mother, Keri Russell, is a famed cellist and his father, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, is a rock star. The two had met years earlier, but were broken up by the girl’s father who told her that her baby was born dead, and gave him to the orphanage without her knowledge.

Terrence Howard is the kindly manager of the orphanage, Mikelti Williamson is a benevolent minister and Robin Williams is a modern day Fagin who exploits runaway children. The gospel song “Raise It Up” won an Oscar nomination.

It’s easy to get caught up in the contrivances of the thriller Awake, but the plot heavy coincidences are so ridiculous you will lose patience with it long before the fadeout. Hayden Christensen is the young billionaire in desperate need of a heart transplant who just happens to secretly marry Jessica Alba against his mother’s wishes the night a heart becomes available. He just happens to be “awake” during the operation in which his would-be killers just happen to discuss their plot. Meanwhile one of the plotters just happens to run into someone who recognizes her in the presence of the film’s true hero who just happens to have the world’s greatest heart transplant specialist on stand-by. Terrence Howard and Arliss Howard are also on board, but the only actor in the film who really makes an impression is Lena Olin as Christensen’s mother. Alba won a much-deserved Razzie nomination for Worst Actress, and she and Christensen an equally-well-deserved nomination for worst couple. This was writer/director Joby Harold’s first film. Don’t be surprised if it’s his last.

For a more rewarding experience watching a suspense film, check out one of Fox’s newly released films noir.

The oldest film in the collection is 1947’s Daisy Kenyon, more of a woman’s film than a film noir, but with Otto Preminger at the helm you get much more than you might imagine. Joan Crawford, at the height of her late 1940s comeback, plays a commercial artist torn between unhappily married attorney Dana Andrews and shell-shocked World War II veteran Henry Fonda. The film throws in subjects not usually seen in films of the period such as the psychological problems of veterans, child abuse and racial prejudice. Ruth Warrick is Andrews’ neurotic wife; Connie Marshall and Peggy Ann Garner, fresh from her Oscar win in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,are his troubled daughters. Though hard to believe now, Andrews was actually a bigger star than Fonda at the time and received billing over him.

Clocking in at a swift 75 minutes, 1953’s Dangerous Crossing, also makes economic use of its sets and costumes. Taking place entirely on an ocean liner, it was filmed on the set Fox built for its 1953 version of Titanic, which was also prominently used in the same year’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Its costumes were also recycled. In one scene supporting actress Marjorie Hoshelle is seen wearing Celeste Holm’s party dress from All About Eve. The cat and mouse plot is fairly easy to figure out, but it is played for maximum effect by Jeanne Crain, Michael Rennie, Carl Betz and Mary Anderson at their best. It was directed by Joseph M. Newman, who was twice nominated for Oscars for Best Assistant Director, when that award was given in the mid-1930s, for David Copperfield and San Francisco.

One of the few films directed by writer/producer Nunnally Johnson (The Grapes of Wrath, The Dirty Dozen), 1954’s Black Widow plays like a noir version of All About Eve. Instead of one legendary Broadway star, you get two, Ginger Rogers and Gene Tierney, stalked by predatory Peggy Ann Garner, a long way from Francie in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Van Heflin is Tierney’s producer husband, Reginald Gardner is Rogers’ writer husband and George Raft is the detective who comes along to trap the murderer at the end. Virginia Leith, Skip Homeier, Otto Kruger, Cathleen Nesbitt and Mabel Albertson are also featured. The film is presented in widescreen for the first time since its initial release.

I hope to have reviews of Warner Gangsters Collection, Vol. 3 and Forbidden Hollywood, Vol. 2 next week.

-Peter J. Patrick (March 18, 2008)