■ Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me
Elaine Stritch emerged in the 1940s as a brassy, belting voice on the Broadway stage and remained active into the 21st century, playing Alec Baldwin’s mother on “30 Rock” and winning a Tony for her one-woman show, Elaine Stritch at Liberty. This documentary follows Stritch as she strides the Manhattan streets in furs, collects recollections (which are many) and offers her crazy direct observations: “It’s wonderful to be almost 87—you can get away with murder!” She died July 17, at age 89.
■ Two Lives
The burden of the past is the theme of this secrets-and-lies drama set in 1990, just after German reunification. Katrine (Juliane Kohler), living comfortably in Norway, wants to forget her childhood and her mother’s shame—her father was a German soldier in occupied Norway during World War II. But the story, which takes time to find its bearings, reveals more suppressed truths as history catches up with Katrine’s past. Liv Ullmann plays her mother.
■ “Prisoners of War: Season One”
Showtime’s Emmy-winning “Homeland” was inspired by an Israeli series, “Prisoners of War.” The DVD release reveals high production values and a believable cast in a tense psychological drama. Three Israeli prisoners, released after 17 years in captivity, come home to a changed world and lives that have moved on. One of the POWs meets the children he never knew and another finds that his fiancée, who gave him up for dead, has married his brother.
