The Unknown Known (Anchor Bay, Blu-ray, DVD) is not exactly a companion piece to The Fog of War, Errol Morris’ documentary on former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert MacNamara. But like that 2003 documentary this takes on a former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, and a foreign war that was launched and (mis)managed under his watch, with indefensible misconduct and scandals, and it is built on defining moments culled from hours of one-on-one interviews with the subject. Where it differs is the response of the subject: Rumsfeld never admits that the basis for war was built on a failure of intelligence or even that it was mistake to invade Iraq and he smiles his explanations to the camera. His smile, with those half-moon eyes suggesting a grandfatherly affection backed by experience and cocksure authority, is the defining image of the film.
Errol Morris is one of the most inventive and engaging non-fiction filmmakers in the world today, using a strong visual presentation to pull audiences in while building his case on excellent research and choice archival materials. But it is his talent as an interviewer and interrogator, honed over decades of filmmaking, that gives the film its dramatic power and its educational punch. Using his trademark Interrotron, a set-up which puts the camera in place of the interviewer as far as the subject is concerned (so they speak directly into the lens while engaging Morris), he confronts Rumsfeld without coming off as confrontational and uses silence as an editorial and a dramatic device. Those dead spaces after Rumsfeld’s statements suggest both an incompleteness and a directorial disagreement. Rumsfeld himself seems to take the production as a platform to lay out the legacy of his statesmanship with the confidence of authority behind his perfectly articulated reasoning that often never quite answers the questions posed to him. There is no doubt that Rumsfeld is both a smart, savvy political players and a polished media creature. But for all the easy-going pose of humility, he isn’t the least bit humble.
Blu-ray and DVD with commentary by filmmaker Errol Morris and a short interview with Morris discussing the genesis and the production of the documentary. Also features the 57-minute archival presentation “Third Annual Report of the Secretaries of Defense,” an hour-long recording of a conference from 1989 featuring Rumsfeld, Robert McNamara and Caspar Weinberger, and the text of Morris’ four-part New York Times op-ed piece “The Certainty of Donald Rumsfeld.”
Like Father, Like Son (Sundance Selects / IFC, DVD), the most recent film from Japan’s Hirokazu Kore-eda, spins a fictional tale out of the real-life issue of swapped infants in hospitals in the baby boom of early 1960s. The film, which won the Jury Prize at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, follows the struggles of one father when he learns that his six-year-old son is not the blood offspring of him and his wife, and he meets his biological son and the couple who raised him as their own. Will they “correct” the mistake and swap boys, one an only child of affluent but rather emotionally-distant parents, the other the eldest of three kids in a lively working-class household? And what does biology have to do with bonding and love? Japanese with English subtitles, no supplements. You can read the reviews here.
Read Danny Miller’s interview with writer / director Kore-eda on Cinephiled here.
Also new and notable: 
From India comes The Lunchbox (Sony, Blu-ray+DVD Combo, Digital, On Demand), the first feature from filmmaker Ritesh Batra, about a neglected housewife (Nimrat Kaur) who connects with a stranger (Irrfan Khan) who accidentally receives a lovingly home cooked lunch meant for her husband and begins a correspondence through the lunchbox delivery system. In Hindi with English subtitles, with director commentary.
Vinyl (Shout! Factory, Blu-ray, DVD) is a British comedy starring Phil Daniels (of Quadrophenia) as an old punk rocker who comes up with a sure hit and releases it under the name of a teenage pop band to get it played. It’s inspired by a real rock-and-roll hoax. No supplements.
VOD / On Demand exclusives:
On Friday, July 4, Steve James’ wonderful documentary Life Itself, a portrait of film critic Roger Ebert based on his memoir and begun in collaboration with Ebert during what turned out to be the last months of his life, will be available to watch via Cable On Demand. This isn’t simply a portrait of a film critic, it is an accounting of a life engaging with movies, with his readers and with the world, of taking pride in the profession of writing, and of Ebert becoming even more determined to engage through writing when cancer took away his ability to speak.
James was one of many filmmakers whose early work was championed by Ebert when his TV show gave him greater reach than any other film critic in the country (a responsibility that Ebert took very seriously) and his respect for Ebert the man as well as Ebert the writer is apparent throughout the film even as it takes on Ebert’s fight with alcoholism and his dislike of TV counterpart Gene Siskel (watch those outtakes from the show’s promo shoots; the snarky insults and verbal sparring are priceless).
Available on Cable On Demand before theaters is Behaving Badly, a comedy with Selena Gomez.
You can purchase Cesar Chavez (Lionsgate) in Digital HD form in advance of its disc release.
Available through Cable On Demand before disc is the drama Half of a Yellow Sun with Chiwetel Ejiofor and John Boyega, and a couple of weeks after disc is Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel.
More releases:
Afflicted (Sony, Blu-ray, DVD, Digital)
Infliction (Virgil, DVD, VOD)
Once Upon a Time in Vietnam (Lionsgate, DVD, Digital HD, VOD)
No Vacancy (Lionsgate, DVD, Digital HD, VOD)
Greasepaint (Cinema Libre, DVD)
TV on disc:
A Young Doctor’s Notebook (BBC, DVD)
Helix: The Complete First Season (Sony, Blu-ray, DVD)
Hinterland: Series 1 (Acorn)
Lovejoy: Series 1 (Acorn, DVD)
Anna Karenina (1977) (Acorn, DVD)
The Twilight Zone: Essential Episodes (55th Anniversary Collection) (Image, DVD)
Time Scanners: Egyptian Pyramids (PBS, DVD)
Cool Spaces!: The Best New Architecture (PBS, DVD)
Wild Brazil: Land of Fire and Flood (BBC, DVD)
Frederick Law Olmsted: Designing America (PBS, DVD)
Classics and Cult:
Operation Petticoat (Olive, Blu-ray, DVD)
Good Sam (Olive, Blu-ray, DVD)
So This is New York (Olive, Blu-ray, DVD)
The Final Terror (Scream Factory, Blu-ray+DVD Combo)
Cannibal Holocaust (Grindhouse, Blu-ray)
Escape From Athena (Hen’s Tooth, DVD)
Scavenger Killers (Midnight Releasing, DVD, VOD, Digital)
Vintage Erotica anno 1970 (Cult Epics, DVD)
Kindergarten Cop (Universal, Blu-ray)
Bring It On (Universal, Blu-ray)
Calendar of upcoming releases on Blu-ray, DVD, Digital, and VOD
