Two Philip Seymour Hoffman movies came out on DVD yesterday. One was, I’m pretty sure, designed to be a Philip Seymour Hoffman movie (The Savages), but it ends up getting stolen by Laura Linney, while the other, I’m pretty sure, was designed to be a Tom Hanks movie (Charlie Wilson’s War), but it ends up getting stolen by Hoffman.

There are basically two sorts of Philip Seymour Hoffman movies at this point, and these are pretty representative of what they are: He’s either cast in the starring role in a big, showy, Oscar-y sort of way (Capote) or he’s thrown in the background somewhere and ends up stealing every scene he’s in (Almost Famous, anything he’s in that Paul Thomas Anderson directed). The Savages is the former, Charlie Wilson’s War is the latter.

Speaking of which, now’s as good a time as any for this amazing bit of film:

Less Mattress Man and more actual DVD reviewage after the jump.

I rewatched Charlie Wilson's War over the weekend when my mom was in town, something I'm pretty proud of myself for thinking to do, because it turns out that the only thing visiting mothers love more than the Kennedy School is anything starring Tom Hanks. (I'm not sure why this is, but as a friend pointed out, the Kennedy School affects parents like catnip affects cats. I thought he was exaggerating when he told me this, but holy shit, he was right: I don't think I've ever seen my mom happier than she was when she was gleefully wandering through those McMenamins halls, and I actually had to physically drag her out of there when it was time to leave.)

Anyway, it was great, because Charlie Wilson's War is kind of the perfect movie to watch with a parent: It's accessible inoffensive and enjoyable, and it makes you look just smart enough and just interested enough in politics to trick said parent into thinking that sending you to college wasn't a total waste of their money. I didn't watch any of the special features or anything on here--a "Making of" featurette and a "profile of the real Charlie Wilson"--partly because I wasn't terribly interested in either, and mostly because I had to take my mom to the Kennedy School.

The Savages also came out yesterday, and Alison's review pretty much nails it. If anything, I think I found it funnier than she did (though it's also crazy manipulative, and the ending is just preposterously chipper, considering what's come before), but then again, I remember Alison telling me she thought the opening scene--in which a demented old man writes out "PRICK" using his own feces on a bathroom wall--was "depressing," while I found it kind of hilarious. Maybe our senses of humor are just different. But fuck, Hoffman is rad in this, in the exact opposite way that he is in Charlie Wilson's War. In Charlie Wilson he's crass and boisterous and sharp and badass--he's intelligent and passionate and cynical and funny, and his scenes with Hanks (and one notable one with Julia Roberts) are incredibly entertaining. He punches things up to a pretty impressive degree in Charlie Wilson's, whereas in The Savages, he sits there, restrained, with as much momentum and vigor as a loaf of bread--just kind of taking up space, being sad, and acting like real person rather than a caricature of one. Breathing heavily and looking tired and pained and occasionally dashing off acerbic, self-defensive and self-loathing comments, his character in The Savages would be devastating and unforgettable if the film itself didn't keep him at a bit of a distance. But The Savages is far more interested with Laura Linney's character, which is kind of a relief, if only because we've all seen plenty of great Hoffman performances at this point, while Linney's are rarer and smaller when they happen. She deserves every bit of praise she got for her performance here--with anybody else in her role, The Savages would have been another Philip Seymour Hoffman movie, but with Linney's performance taken into account, Hoffman becomes almost a supporting character, and the film's the better for it. That's not to say that Hoffman can't be great when he's the focus; it's just to point out that he's also fantastic as a side character, whether by design (The Big Lebowski), accident (The Savages, maybe), or the immutable nature of the Hollywood blockbuster (Mission: Impossible III).

The Savages' special features are pretty boring: Some extended scenes, some photographs by director Tamara Jenkins, and a featurette, "About The Savages" that has everyone involved in the production talking about how great the movie is and how great it was to work with everybody. The most interesting thing here is listening to Jenkins talk about how the film was inspired by Americans' "outsourcing of the elderly"--especially since The Savages focuses far more on the (relatively) young children of the elderly rather than the elderly themselves; old people have a terrible go of things in America, we are assured, but Jenkins seems to feel more sorry for the children of the elderly than the elderly themselves. (Philip Bosco plays the troubled, aging, dying father of Hoffman and Linney, and one senses it'd be a hell of a performance, if only Jenkins made him feel like more of a person and less of a MacGuffin--as is, he's an excuse to put Hoffman and Linney in terrible, guilt-inducing situations, rather than someone whose own terrible situation is ever examined.) On the upside, though, the great DVD menus appear to be done by Chris Ware, who also did the film's fantastic poster.

In conclusion, I know everybody loves Philip Seymour Hoffman, and critics are always fawning over him and stroking themselves whenever his name comes up, but that is because he is awesome. Even in Mission: Impossible III. And also, if you have some time to kill while entertaining a visiting parent, Charlie Wilson's War is an excellent bet. It's no Kennedy School, but still.