By Dennis D. McDonald

The DVD

The DVD edition of Spike Lee’s MIRACLE AT ST. ANNA continues the trend of only including extras (commentaries, documentaries, deleted scenes, etc.) on the more expensive BLU-RAY edition. I’m assuming the treason for this is to cajole people into switching over to BLU-RAY. In my case, it’s just one more reason not to buy any more DVD’s. Makes perfect sense, right?

With numbskull marketing decisions to punish customers like that, I now understand why so many folks have decided that BLU-RAY is a dead format on the way to reliable online streaming.

The Movie

Yes, the movie is bloated. Yes, it has extraneous scenes. Yes, it’s over-long (2.5 hours). Yes, it contains unnecessary plot points.

It’s also very worth seeing — if you can tolerate the graphic nature of some of the scenes of violence and cruelty. There’s enough creativity, truth, history, drama, and excitement here for three movies.

Copyright (c) 2009 by Dennis D. McDonald