The latest in the most excellent Docurama series of DVD releases is Best Boy, Ira Wohl's 1979 feature length doc about his mentally retarded cousin, a 52-year-old man, Philly, who must learn to fend for himself as his parents become too aged to take care of him anymore. There are some devastating scenes here, many of them beautifully rendered in a deeply personal bit of filmmaking. This film won a richly deserved Oscar for best doc, and the DVD has a bonus on it, the 1999 sequel Best Man, in which we catch up with Philly and find that he's doing just fine.

In other Oscar quibbling, though I realize I run the risk of offending many Lord of the Rings freaks, even as a huge Peter Jackson fan I've got to say that the Best Picture Oscar really should have gone to Mystic River, Clint Eastwood's moody mystery which offers four of the most exquisite performances I've seen in one movie in a long time. It's out on DVD this week.