DVD Favorites: Misfits, Dear Zachary, Liberty Heights

• Hilary Andrews
• Student, San Diego State University

If Heroes and Skins were combined into a single series, you’d get Misfits. Misfits is a British TV show about five delinquent social outcasts who become unlikely friends after a lightning storm gives them super powers. It’s funny, sexy, thrilling, and wonderfully original.

Repo! The Genetic Opera, directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, is very macabre but at the same time appealing and artistically beautiful. The story begins after a worldwide epidemic of organ failures has led biotech giant GeneCo to become the world’s leading supplier of organ transplants, with the catch being that repossession of said organs after any missed payments tends to be a fatal affair. Repo! will please a campy coterie of fans, and not many else.

• Misfits: Season One
• (England) 2011, AIS
• List price: $56.98

• Repo! The Genetic Opera (USA) 2008, Lionsgate
• List price: $14.98

• 
  Jeffrey Robert Murray
• Musician and Panera Bread associate

Dear Zachary must be the most horrifying film I’ve ever encountered. This documentary by Kurt Kuenne follows the story of two childhood moviemakers and one man’s tribute to his best friend’s son.  It’s a documentary crafted with an unnervingly raw edge and a story so polished with moments of disbelief and passion, it may haunt you for the rest of your life.

Start getting ready for the new Hobbit movie! I know it may be weird to recommend the middle of a trilogy, but in the case of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Special Edition) an exception must be made. With a run time of 223 minutes, Andy Serkis, bonus features on Weta Workshop, and four different commentary tracks — you may need a month for your journey there and back again.

• Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (USA) 2008, Oscilloscope
• List Price: $29.99

• The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (New Zealand) 2002, New Line
• List Price: $39.99

• 
  Jocelyn Maggard
• Freelance journalist, jocelynmaggard.com

Liberty Heights is one of my favorite movies, but most people have never seen or heard of it. Barry Levinson (Rain Man and Good Morning Vietnam) wrote, directed, and produced the movie. What I love most is its coming-of-age narrative, dry humor, and lead character Ben Kurtzman — though it offers much more than that. I have become a one-woman crusader to educate the world about this little known, yet beautiful, film.

In the spirit of election season, I began watching The West Wing again. Now, my dream job is to work in the White House, but only in Aaron Sorkin’s fictional administration. Besides my crush on the president’s personal aide (Dule Hill), I am drawn into every episode’s quick and brilliant dialogue; the chemistry among the characters; and a good dose of foreign and domestic policy issues that are still relevant. 

• Liberty Heights (USA) 2000, Warner Home Video
• List Price: $9.99

• The West Wing: The Complete Series (USA) 2006, Warner Home Video
• List Price: $145.00