“Miracle at St. Anna”
Maverick director Spike Lee contributes a much- belated, often beautiful addition to the “greatest generation” WWII genre with this tale about four soldiers holed up in a Tuscan village. James McBride adapted his historical novel about a murder in 1983, the discovery of a priceless Italian artifact and the experiences of the 92nd Buffalo Soldier Division in 1944. Derek Luke, Michael Ealy, Laz Alonso and Omar Benson Miller play the soldiers. Each of them brings a distinct approach to their characters’ freighted feelings about racial identity and racism. And Lee brings a maturing sensibility and a talent for ensemble performance to a story that is loving, angry and profoundly American. The shimmering presence and believable camaraderie of Italian newcomer Matteo Sciabordi and Miller as the Italian orphan and lumbering giant who rescues him are magical. R. 2 hours, 35 minutes. Lisa Kennedy
“Blindness”
When the characters in Fernando Meirelles’ “Blindness” are stricken, they plunge into a fluid, milky world. The First Blind Man sits in a car at an intersection when he loses his sight. Is he at a crossroads? Of course. And so is the government that imposes a quarantine in this disturbingly beautiful adaptation of Nobel prize winner Jose Saramago’s parable of physical and social disintegration. Other characters cross paths at an ophthalmologist’s. The Doctor (Mark Ruffalo) can’t diagnose the illness. Then he and those he treated lose their vision. The Doctor’s wife, played by consistently brave performer Julianne Moore, continues to see. “Blindness” is a fable likely to make some moviegoers balk. But taken as an allegory of, say, poverty, the notion of hiding away the afflicted, letting them rot, doesn’t seem so willful on the filmmaker’s part. No, it is not an easy fable. Then so few worthy ones are. Danny Glover and Gael Garcia Bernal also star. R. 2 hours. Lisa Kennedy
“Nights in Rodanthe”
There’s still plenty of charm in romantically pairing Richard Gere and Diane Lane, who can still play flirty and cute with the best of them. A storm’s a-coming. The Banks are hunkering down. And they’re the only two sad, lost souls at the inn. All you need is a little hurricane, a little wine, some Dinah Washington/Brooke Benton records, and sparks will fly. It’s a pity that a movie that begins with such simmering promise chills into a film of pretty people in a pretty place telling a pretty bland story. PG-13. 1 hour, 38 minutes. Roger Moore, The Orlando Sentinel
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Friday the 13th The Series: Season Two
Imprint
Joni Mitchell’s the Fiddle and the Drum
Melrose Place: The Fifth Season, Volume One
Ode to Billy Joe
Relative Strangers
The Romance of Astrea and Celadon
Sam Elliott Western Collection
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