I suppose that the studios have reasons for their releasing patterns, but it’s beyond me why so many major New Releases – from Oscar nominees and critical favorites to mainstream successes to notable foreign dramas – are getting poured into the DVD marketplace on March 10. It’s so busy that I bumped two of the foreign releases – Ben X and Claude Miller’s A Secret – to my March 17 column on MSN just so they wouldn’t get swamped in the deluge. And still there were so many that I was unable to fit in reviews of many interesting film that deserved coverage. I didn’t even get a chance to see Cadillac Records, the dramatized story of Chess Records starring Adrian Brody as Leonard Chess and a great supporting cast playing R&B legends (Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters, Cedric the Entertainer as Willie Dixon, Eamonn Walker as Howlin’ Wolf, Mos Def as Chuck Berry and Beyoncé Knowles as Etta James), which I missed in the theaters. And Synecdoche, New York and Battle in Seattle have been relegated to mere listings under the reviews.

So that’s what isn’t covered this week at MSN. What is? Gus Van Sant’s Milk, which won Oscars for Sean Penn’s inspiring performance as Harvey Milk and for Dustin Lance Black’s (for more conventional) screenplay. Their Harvey Milk is not a crucified messiah but a flesh-and-blood human being who rediscovers himself and his potential when he moves to San Francisco and comes out as a proud gay man. Penn plays Milk as a goofy, gay nerd who wins folks over with his sincerity, his passion and his complete lack of self-consciousness and the film focuses less on Milk’s triumphs than on his activism, how he shaped a movement and showed gay men and lesbian women all over the country that they could stand up for their rights as a political force.

Jonathan Demme’s marvelous Rachel Getting Married, which earned an Oscar nomination for Anne Hathaway and delivers one of the great ensemble performances of the year – Demme creates an incredible community/extended family and pulls it together with a great use of music. (I reviewed the film for the Seattle P-I here.)

Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky, which earned star Sally Hawkins a basket full of awards but no Oscar nomination, and stands out as gloomy Leigh’s most genuinely and honestly optimistic film ever.

And my personal favorite of the New Releases this week: Tomas Alfredson’s Swedish vampire film / young love horror piece Let the Right One In, which was on my Top Ten list for 2008. (I review the film on my blog here and for Parallax View here.)
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