It's a good week for comedies: you can now take home Ellen Page in Juno, own the African satire Bamako about a broken marriage and a broken country, and see Ryan Gosling fall for a blow up doll in Lars and the Real Girl.
1. Juno 2-Disc Set (2007)
Fox Searchlight
You know about Juno, the runaway success about the super hip teenage girl played by Canadian acting phenon Ellen Page who gives her baby up for adoption. Outrageous Diablo Cody won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and the film took the top prize at the Indie Spirit Awards, to name just a few of the prizes. Now Juno is out on DVD. Special features include deleted scenes, commentary tracks, the behind the scenes featurette Honest to Blog, gag takes, and more.
2. Bamako (2007)
New Yorker Films
You might not know about Bamako. Salon.com's Andrew O'Hehir named Abderrahmane Sissako's film his favorite of 2007: "A wry, witty and tragic experience with a dynamite emotional payoff." The offbeat, satiric comedy tells the story of Mele (Aissa Maiga), an attractive Malian lounge singer whose marriage, like the African continent, is on the verge of collapse.
3. Lars and the Real Girl (2007)
MGM (Video & DVD)
Any film Ryan Gosling stars in, we want to see. He blew us away as a crack-smoking history teacher in Half Nelson and he's just as good as a lonely man who falls in love with a blow up doll in the comedy Lars and the Real Girl. The terrific cast also includes Emily Mortimer and Patricia Clarkson. Nancy Oliver received an Academy Award nomination for Best Screenplay -- she lost out to Diablo Cody's Juno.
