Act of God (Zeitgeist), Jennifer Baichwal’s documentary about the lingering effects on the lives of those struck by lightning, is suitably bizarre but insufficiently illuminating (so to speak). Baichwal interviews people like author Paul Auster and playwright James O’Reilly about their experiences, intercutting shots of the awe-inspiring grandeur of nature’s beauty and terror. Only 75 minutes long, Act of God seems incomplete, yet there are beautifully mystifying moments. The plentiful extras include an interview with Baichwal, additional scenes highlighted by Auster reading from his own short stories, a featurette about director Peter Greenaway, whose own nutty cinematic theories serve as a backdrop for his own 1980 short film—also called Act of God— which is a small masterpiece and worth the price of the DVD by itself. Thanks, Zeitgeist!

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The Boys Are Back (Miramax) stars Clive Owen in a sentimental, heart-tugging true story—no surprise coming from Scott Hicks, director of the sentimental, heart-tugging Shine (best extra: photo gallery narrated by Hicks); Damages—the Complete Second Season (Sony), the cable legal-team drama, consolidates its hold as one of television’s best-acted shows, led by award-winner Glenn Close and Rose Byrne (best extra: cast/crew interviews/commentaries); a surprise Best Foreign Film Oscar winner last year, Departures (E1) is an interesting but fatally overlong and sappy drama about “encoffinators” whose sacred rituals performed on dead bodies are an integral part of Japanese culture (lone extra: director interview); Dominick Dunne—After the Party (Indiepix), an intimate look at the famous writer who died last year, has been re-released with more material that adds to its already juicy and gossipy tidbits about the rich and famous (best extra: additional interviews); The Donner Party (First Look), a subdued psychological drama about the infamous 19^th century group who reverted to cannibalism to survive, features Crispin Glover in a surprisingly restrained performance as one of the party’s leaders; The Drummer (Film Movement), starring Jaycee Chan—Jackie’s son—as a man escaping Hong Kong underworld bosses only to be surprised in Taiwan, is a strangely satisfying twist on a familiar plot (lone extra: Swedish short, Love and War); making The Escapist (IFC) worth watching simply by his usual strong screen presence is Brian Cox, who plays a prisoner looking to bust out so he can see his terminally ill daughter (best extra: making-of featurette); the Afghan elections were historic in many ways, most of all because of the presence of a woman on the ballot: Frontrunner (Indiepix)^th and 21^st century wars, military men and women have questioned their leaders, and The Good Soldier (NeoFlix) powerfully shows the psychological effects on their return home to “normalcy”; Argentine director Lucretia Martel has become a new festival critics’ darling, yet her third drama, The Headless Woman (Strand), again pointlessly mixes Antonioni-like angst with her own ponderousness (lone extra: director interview); in Hello Goodbye (Liberation Entertainment), French stars Fanny Ardant and Gerard Depardieu make a charming couple who decide to return to their Jewish roots by moving to Israel—with undesired results (lone extra: Ardant interview); The JFK Assassination—24 Hours After (History Channel), companion piece to the intriguing new book by Steven M. Gillon, takes an in-depth look at how Lyndon Johnson assumed the presidency amid the chaos following Kennedy’s murder in Dallas; the Dardenne brothers basically make the same movie over and over, and Lorna’s Silence (Sony)—despite newcomer Arta Dobroshi’s beautifully unaffected portrayal in the title role—plays like a parody of earlier, better films like La promesse and Rosetta; Somers Town (Film Movement), Shane Mathews’ follow-up to the hard-hitting This Is England, is a gentle tale of friendship between two hardscrabble teenagers in a rundown section of London (lone extra: British short, Odd Shoe); a masterly blend of fiction and documentary, 24 City (Cinema Guild) is another account of how China is so quickly undergoing modernization by director Jia Zhangke (best extra: Jia short, Cry Me a River); Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All by Myself (Lionsgate), a pretentiously silly movie, is very nearly redeemed by the go-for-broke acting of Taraji P. Henson, who was Oscar-nominated for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (best extra: making-of featurette); Nina Hoss’s powerhouse performance as the title character of A Woman in Berlin (Strand) makes Max Färberböck’s raw, tough-minded exploration of the final days of the Third Reich a worthwhile journey. tells this story with insight (lone extra: background slideshows); throughout America’s 20