This is a great week to catch up with a few indies that came and went quickly in theaters. Craig Zobel's Great World of Sound burst out of Sundance last year with positive notices -- check GreenCine Daily's roundup -- and our own James Rocchi named it one of the ten best of the year. The basic premise is that two music scouts go on the road in the American South to look for acts to sign. In James' original review, he described it as "funny and vital and tough." Magnolia's DVD includes an audio commentary and deleted scenes.If Feast of Love had nothing else to recommend it, it would deserve recommendation as director Robert Benton's latest work. As Jeffrey M. Anderson commented, Benton's melodramas (Kramer vs. Kramer, Places in the Heart, Nobody's Fool) "almost always hit home." Feast of Love "focuses on several couples in a Portland college community," he wrote. "These characters may live in a college town, but in love, everyone has something to learn." Morgan Freeman, Greg Kinnear and Radha Mitchell star. MGM's DVD looks bare, with just one feature evidently on board.
Director Allan Moyle returned to his roots (Pump Up the Volume, Empire Records) to make Weirdsville, in which stoners, Satanists and drug dealers commingle. In her TIFF review, Monika Bartyzel called it "fun, endearing, and quite fluid for a stoner comedy. It's also recognizably Canadian (the drug dealer is into curling), but still completely palpable for wider audiences." Wes Bentley and Scott Speedman star. Magnolia's DVD includes an audio commentary and 14 featurettes: behind the scenes, making of, and interviews.
