Smoking crack in the girls bathroom

When Oscar nominations were handed out a few weeks ago, I was surprised to see Ryan Gosling come out with a nomination for "Half Nelson," a film many friends had praised and recommended to me but I'd still not seen. Thankfully, the DVD release fixed all that. \nGosling is junior high teacher Dan Dunne, a man with his own methods of teaching history outside the school's policies and when outside of the school, faces a mean addiction to cocaine. When Dunne finally decides to hit the crack pipe in the bathroom of the girl's basketball team he coaches, one of his players, Drey (Shareeka Epps), misses her ride home and just happens to find Dunne strung-out in the stall. From that day on, the line between teacher and student are blurred by this no-longer-secret addiction Dunne has been hiding for who knows how long. \nGosling is damn good here, bringing forth a blistering realism to his performance that hasn't been seen on the screen since director Otto Preminger convinced Frank Sinatra to play a smack addict in "The Man with the Golden Arm." Gosling isn't going to be collecting a statue this year at the Oscars, but I can see it in the stars that he is destined to pick one up somewhere in his promising career. Think the best performance by a youngster this year belongs to Abigail Breslin in "Little Miss Sunshine"? You need to take a step back and look at Shareeka Epps who is dead-on in her debut role. And Anthony Mackie who plays Frank, the drug dealer/pseudo-father figure to Drey, is just as impressive.\nThe DVD is nothing special. A couple deleted and extended scenes that go nowhere, some humorous outtakes, a Rhymefest music video and commentary with director Ryan Fleck make up the disc. What this DVD needed was some interviews with the cast on how they prepared for their roles, especially Gosling and Epps, and possibly a featurette on Gosling's teaching style in the classroom. \nI'll admit that "Half Nelson" isn't exactly the kind of film you're going to want to watch over and over again, but it certainly doesn't sink in upon first viewing. There are plenty of layers here to dig into and with so many films out there about teachers who try to make a difference in their students' lives (such as the recent "Freedom Writers"), "Nelson" isn't pulling any punches; it is a lone wolf distanced from a pack of all too similar films.