Ashtanga, NY

Yoga enthusiasts may find something to interest them in this fond but rudimentary film about the Ashtanga school--although I doubt they'll glean much new information, save that Gwyneth Paltrow, Willem Dafoe, and Donna Karan are among its devotees. But Caroline Laskow and Mary Wigmore's Ashtanga, NY does carry the dubious distinction of having been shot in Manhattan on and around September 11, 2001, and the terrorist attacks become a meditative focal point for guru Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, the foremost master of the complex Ashtanga style (which has helped keep him looking much younger than his 86 years), whose month-long workshop at the city's premiere yoga school had been the movie's original subject. Interviews with the aforementioned celebs and other students provide a well-rounded portrait of Ashtanga's following in the United States, but to an outsider this may seem more like an infomercial than a documentary. DVD extras includes outtakes, footage from a Hindu ritual, and a string of distractingly hacked-up 30-to 60-second snippets from an interview with the filmmakers. Optional. Aud: C, P. (R. Blackwelder)