The Messenger
(Oscilloscope, $30)
The Messenger could be a “companion piece” to last year’s Best Picture winner, The Hurt Locker, said USA Today. This drama, about a war hero who’s been assigned to tell families about the deaths of their soldiers, takes a “wholly different took” at the Iraq war by offering “a gentle portrait of grief, friendship, and solace.”
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Invictus
(Warner Home Video, $28.98)
Clint Eastwood directs this Oscar-nominated sports drama “with eloquent simplicity,” said the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Its account of South African President Nelson Mandela’s attempt to “unite the nation through rugby” includes powerful performances from Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon.
Oshima’s Outlaw Sixties
(Criterion, $69.95)
Of the Japanese directors who emerged after World War II, Nagisa Oshima is by far the “most provocative,” said The New York Times. Made between 1965 and 1968, the over-the-top films in this five-disc set are among the filmmaker’s “most obscure”—but they may also be the “most restlessly creative” of his 50-year career.
