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EW DVD review: Brilliant 'Batman'

Also: Fascinating 'Unscripted'

By Dalton Ross
Entertainment Weekly

Christian Bale as Batman in "Batman Begins."

• Review: Welcome return for 'Batman'

YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS

(Entertainment Weekly) -- In "Batman Begins," director Christopher Nolan gets back to a deeper, darker vision of the Caped Crusader. It delves so deep into the hero's origins that, if anything, the movie loses some steam once Christian Bale actually dons the cape and cowl.

Purists will delight in the two-disc packaging, which includes not only a 72-page book but also an interactive comic/ menu leading to loads of EXTRAS (Bale initially put on too much weight and crew members called the star "Fatman") and hidden delights (some nifty stunt tests).

EW Grade: A-

'Unscripted'

Reviewed by Kirven Blount

"Be actors! Come on, be actors!" Frank Langella's acting-teacher character exhorts his students in "Unscripted," the improvised HBO original series about the struggle to make a career doing just that.

But executive producers -- and "Ocean's Eleven" pals -- Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney (who also directs the first five episodes) have something else in mind: Bryan Greenberg (one of those receiving Langella's godlike instruction) says on the show's website that Clooney told him, "I don't want to see you act."

In playing themselves while still giving riveting performances, the cast manages to take both pieces of direction. By unfurling spicy cameos (Meryl Streep, Brad Pitt, and Sam Rockwell among them), incorporating elements of the principals' true lives, and demanding of them honest in-the-moment reactions, "Unscripted" attains a reality that just might contain the seeds of that long-awaited antidote to Reality.

EXTRAS None.

EW Grade: A-

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