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Battle: Los Angeles (2011)
dir. Jonathan Liebesman
Product Decsription:
Battle: Los Angeles is a war movie first, science fiction second. It's got it all: a burned-out retiring sergeant who gets drawn back in because, dammit, the Marines need him; the guy who's about to get married; the guy who's still a virgin; the guy suffering from shell shock and who just might crack; the newbie officer with a lot of book learning who you just know is going to freeze under pressure and have to be shepherded by that burned-out sergeant, who learned his lessons on the battlefield… and so much more. There's not a moment in this movie you haven't seen before--the only twist is that the enemy is alien, so whatever shred of concern you might have for raining heavy artillery on a fellow human being can be cheerfully cast aside. But clichés are clichés because they are efficient and effective, and despite the profound familiarity of Battle: Los Angeles, there's no denying the movie rips along (though two-thirds of the way through you may have forgotten who was the virgin and who was the shell-shocked guy--but really, does it matter?). The look owes a debt to District 9, a hand-held, vérité grittiness, with most of the CGI carefully given a dingy, dirty look so that it meshes with the urban landscape. Aaron Eckhart (The Dark Knight) does an impressive job of spitting out ham-fisted dialogue like he really, really means it, while the rest of the cast is suitably generic. This is an unrepentant love letter to the military; many viewers, faced with the unsettling chaos and moral ambiguities of real wars, will find this mythologizing not only soothing, but even moving. --Bret Fetzer
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Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen (2010)
dir. Andrew Lau
Product Decsription:
In 1920s China, the nation is divided by infighting. Japan has become the most powerful force in Asia, taking over Northern Shanghai. With the city torn in half by international conflict, the popular nightclub Casablanca has become a hotbed of spies, mobsters, English officials and the Japanese military- all looking to gain control of the country, with little regard for what happens to its citizens. Into this den of intrigue enters Chen Zhen, once played by Bruce Lee in FIST OF FURY and Jet Li in FIST OF LEGEND. Chen Zhen (Donnie Yen), has returned to China after fighting alongside the Allied forces in Europe, bringing some dark secrets from his past along with him. During the day, he's known as "Ku", and appears to be just another wealthy playboy. But at night, he takes to the street as a masked warrior, determined to subvert the Japanese invasion while becoming entangled with the sultry Kiki (Shu Qi), who has a dangerous secret of her own. When his past catches up to him, Zhen is faced with near impossible odds- but his skills are formidable, and he's up to the challenge. Combining the best of today's martial arts and superhero action with the classic spy thrillers of the past (and a healthy dose of film noir on top), LEGEND OF THE FIST is the rare action film that truly gives the audience something they've never seen before.
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Hall Pass (2011)
dir. Bobby Farrelly, Peter Farrelly
Product Decsription:
Anyone familiar with the work of writer-directors Bobby and Peter Farrelly, especially There's Something About Mary, will be neither surprised nor shocked by the raunchy, gross-out gags that permeate Hall Pass. But what Farrelly fans might not expect is what comes at the other end of the spectrum--namely, a tender, even sentimental point of view in which marriage is sanctified and even a couple of delusional doofuses end up on the right side of righteousness. Buddies Rick (Owen Wilson) and Fred (Jason Sudeikis) have attractive, loving wives (Maggie and Grace, played by Jenna Fischer and Christina Applegate, respectively) and, in Rick's case, a couple of cute kids. But boys will be boys, and after catching their husbands eyeing other women's butts, making rude remarks in front of friends, and so on, the ladies decide to offer them "hall passes"--an entire week during which they can pretend they're not married and do whatever they want, no questions asked, while the wives head for Cape Cod. Rick, for one, is nonplussed; here is a decent guy who refuses to buy beer for his underage babysitter (not to mention resisting her flirtatious come-ons) and generally tries to do the right thing, and he suspects there's more than meets the ear to Maggie's offer (Fred, on the other hand, expects to spend the week scoring young hotties with lines like "You must be from Ireland, 'cos when I look at you my penis is Dublin"). But while Maggie and Grace find themselves courted by some studly minor-league baseball dudes, Rick and Fred mostly just strike out. Their shenanigans are accompanied by a parade of typically sophomoric Farrelly gags: penis jokes (and a couple of real penises), masturbation jokes, scatological jokes, "I'm so stoned" marijuana jokes, and sexual terms (like "eye banging" and "fake chow") that can't be explained on a family website. Some of this is funny, most merely dumb; some viewers will think the humor goes too far, others not far enough. But the overriding impression is that a decade or more past their biggest hits, the Farrellys, who are now in their 50s, have grown up--at least a little. --Sam Graham
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Insignificance: The Criterion Collection (1985)
dir. Nicolas Roeg
Product Decsription:
Four unnamed people who look and sound a lot like Albert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe, Joe DiMaggio, and Joseph McCarthy converge in one New York City hotel room for this compelling, visually inventive adaptation of Terry Johnson’s play, from director Nicolas Roeg (Walkabout, The Man Who Fell to Earth). With a combination of whimsy and dread, Roeg creates a fun-house-mirror picture of cold war America that questions the nature of celebrity and plays on a society’s simmering nuclear fears. Insignificance is a delirious, intelligent drama, featuring magnetic performances by Michael Emil (Tracks, Always) as “the professor,” Theresa Russell (Bad Timing, Black Widow) as “the actress,” Gary Busey (The Buddy Holly Story, Lethal Weapon) as “the ballplayer,” and Tony Curtis (Sweet Smell of Success, Spartacus) as “the senator.”
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The Makioka Sisters: The Criterion Collection (1983)
dir. Kon Ichikawa
Ichikawa's movies are generally instant buys regardless of subject matter. Looking forward to checking this out.
Product Decsription:
This lyrical adaptation of the beloved Japanese novel by Junichiro Tanizaki was a late-career triumph for world-class director Kon Ichikawa (The Burmese Harp, Fires on the Plain). Revolving around the changing of the seasons, The Makioka Sisters (Sasame-yuki) follows the lives of four sisters who have taken on their family’s kimono manufacturing business, over the course of a number of years leading up to the Pacific War. The two oldest have been married for some time, but according to tradition, the rebellious youngest sister cannot wed until the third, conservative and terribly shy, finds a husband. This graceful study of a family at a turning point in history is a poignant evocation of changing times and fading customs, shot in rich, vivid colors.
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Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Ultimate Edition) (2009)
dir. David Yates
I'm gonna have to sit down and watch all these movies again before the last one comes out. I can barely remember half the shit that happens, even in the most recent one.
Product Decsription:
Voldemort is tightening his grip on both the Muggle and wizarding worlds and Hogwarts is no longer the safe haven it once was. Harry suspects that dangers may even lie within the castle, but Dumbledore is more intent upon preparing him for the final battle that he knows is fast approaching. Together they work to find the key to unlock Voldemort’s defenses and, to this end, Dumbledore recruits his old friend and colleague, Professor Horace Slughorn, whom he believes holds crucial information. Even as the decisive showdown looms, romance blossoms for Harry, Ron, Hermione and their classmates. Love is in the air, but danger lies ahead and Hogwarts may never be the same.
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Kill the Irishman (2011)
dir. Jonathan Hensleigh
Product Decsription:
Over the summer of 1976, thirty-six bombs detonated in the heart of Cleveland while a turf war raged between Irish mobster Danny Greene (Ray Stevenson) and the Italian mafia. Based on a true story, KILL THE IRISHMAN chronicles Greene's heroic rise from a tough Cleveland neighborhood to become an enforcer in the local mob. Turning the tables on loan shark Shondor Birns (Christopher Walken) and allying himself with gangster John Nardi (Vincent D'Onofrio), Greene stops taking orders from the mafia and pursues his own power. Surviving countless assassination attempts from the mob and killing off anyone who went after him in retaliation, Danny Greene's infamous invincibility and notorious fearlessness eventually led to the collapse of mafia syndicates across the U.S. and also earned him the status of the man the mob couldn't kill.
Written and directed by Jonathan Hensleigh and also starring Val Kilmer, Paul Sorvino and Linda Cardellini, KILL THE IRISHMAN is inspired by Rick Porello's true crime account ''To Kill The Irishman: The War That Crippled The Mafia.''
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Mooz-Lum (2011)
dir. Qasim Basir
Product Decsription:
AMID A STRICT MUSLIM REARING AND A SOCIAL LIFE HE'S NEVER HAD, TARIQ (EVAN ROSS) ENTERS COLLEGE CONFUSED. NEW PEERS, FAMILY AND MENTORS HELP HIM FIND HIS PLACE, BUT THE 9-11 ATTACKS FORCE HIM TO FACE HIS PAST AND MAKE THE BIGGEST DECISIONS OF HIS LIFE.
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Red Riding Hood (2011)
dir. Catherine Hardwicke
Product Decsription:
In a medieval village a beautiful young girl falls for an orphaned woodcutter, much to her family's displeasure. When her sister is killed by the werewolf that prowls the dark forest surrounding their village, the people call on a famed werewolf hunter to help them kill the wolf. As the death toll rises with each moon, the girl begins to suspect that the werewolf could be someone she loves. Panic grips the town as she discovers that she has a unique connection to the beast--one that inexorably draws them together, making her both suspect...and bait.
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Big Mommas: Like Father Like Son (2011)
dir. John Whitesell
currently watching old Def Comedy Jam clips on youtube to try and forget about stuff like this
Product Decsription:
Martin Lawrence returns as Master of Disguise--well, just one disguise, honestly, but he's really, really good at it--FBI agent Malcolm Turner in the second sequel to 2000's blockbuster Big Momma's House. Here, the agent must throw on the padding to pose as the housemother at an exclusive Female School of the Arts, in an attempt to ferret out a murderous Russian Mobster. The twist? This time he's forced to bring his stepson (Tropic Thunder's Brandon T. Jackson) along with him. The presence of Jackson makes this genially mellow sequel feel like a low-impact passing of the torch, with Lawrence (who also executive produced) seemingly content to let his younger costar handle most of the cross-dressing comedic heavy lifting (ballet lessons, slumber parties, etc.). Only a scene where Big Momma faces off in a game of Twister against an equally gargantuan security guard (an uncredited and very funny Faizon Love) really feels of a piece with the earlier films. Stranger still is the inclusion of a half-dozen musical numbers, including one in a lunchroom that blossoms into full-out High School Musical territory. Awkward as these song-and-dance interludes often are, the filmmakers should deserve some credit for attempting to inject some form of new energy into a scenario that could definitely use a boost. Longtime fans of the franchise and Lawrence, however, may wonder if someone at Fox accidentally let Glee into the telepod. --Andrew Wright
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The Image (1975)
dir. Radley Metzger
Product Decsription:
From highly acclaimed director Radley Metzger, THE IMAGE (aka THE PUNISHMENT OF ANNE / THE MISTRESS AND THE SLAVE) is a fascinating study of the sadomasochistic relationship between a man, a young girl, and an older woman. Jean (Carl Parker, SCORE), meets his old friend Claire (Marilyn Roberts) at a party and is introduced to the young, seductive Anne (Mary Mendum). Jean discovers the two women have a master/slave relationship and gets seduced into their perverse sexual games. Based on the classic novel L' Image from Catherine Robbe-Grillet (under the pseudonym of Jean de Berg), this masterpiece of cinema is hailed by critics as one of the best erotic films ever made. Beautifully photographed with highly explicit imagery and provocative situations, THE IMAGE will titillate, arouse and shock you like no other film you've ever seen. Newly remastered in high definition and created directly from the original 35mm camera negative, this version of THE IMAGE is presented uncut and uncensored with a newly remixed 5.1 surround sound. Bonus Features include: New (1.85:1) High Definition Transfer, Newly Remixed 5.1 Surround Soundtrack, Original 2.0 Mono Soundtrack, Isolated Music and Effects Track, Director Filmography, Liner Notes, English Subtitles for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.
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DVD Picks for June 21st, 2011
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The Adjustment Bureau (2011)
dir. George Nolfi
Haven't seen this yet, but I'll generally watch anything that was based on a PKD story
Product Decsription:
Matt Damon is doing things a lot of top movie stars are sometimes scared to do: spreading his image thin among a range of roles, directors, and material. His forays away from the huge successes of, say, the Bourne movies or the Ocean's series which have highlighted his fully realized strengths as a buff action hero who can also slip effortlessly into natural comic charm aren't exactly risky. His image as a leading-man movie star is pretty much sealed, but in movies like The Informant, Invictus, Hereafter, True Grit, and others, he's stretching some different muscles that take him closer to character-actor territory. That has largely been a good thing for his fans, if not for his box-office stats. The Adjustment Bureau takes him somewhere in between--he's in leading-man territory with the Damon charisma in full bore and giving his all to a story that needs the toned actorly muscle he provides. Based on a novelette by science-fiction icon Philip K. Dick, The Adjustment Bureau exposes a cadre of people who are either superhuman or nonhumans and control the world by magically influencing the fate of every single person in it. Damon plays David Norris, an aspiring politician who rose from working-class roots in Brooklyn (a not-so-closeted skeleton that sometimes comes back to haunt him) to wealth and the likely promise of high office. Unfortunately, David takes some liberties with his fate that don't correspond with the narrative laid out by "the Chairman," the entity in charge of the Adjustment Bureau autocrats whose matching fedoras are none-too-subtle symbols for wings. The movie evades any mention of religion, but those hats and references to the Chairman are huge winks. Emily Blunt is the equally appealing presence who screws up the Chairman's plan in concert with Norris. They fall for each other hard again and again, constantly thwarting and confounding the bureau's best-laid adjusting tricks at every turn. Though it is often simplistic in its plot contrivances, the movie is nifty, clever, nimbly paced, and filled with ingenious special effects. Especially impressive is the recurring motif of doors that are virtual wormholes--a closet that leads to the middle of Yankee stadium, an Escher-like maze of conference rooms that constantly double back on themselves (shades of the dizzying door sequence in Monsters, Inc.). Another cool visual prop are the plain bound books bureau functionaries carry that are filled with intricate, animated schematic diagrams that chart the course of a life and how it interacts with others. John Slattery, Anthony Mackie, and Terence Stamp round out the uniformly excellent cast headed by Damon and Blunt, and with the slick production design and inventive effects, the glossy performances go a long way in adjusting up any dramatic shortcomings The Adjustment Bureau may have improperly calibrated. --Ted Fry
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Cedar Rapids (2011)
dir. Miguel Arteta
Product Decsription:
When a naive, small-town insurance agent named Tim Lippe (Ed Helms, The Hangover) goes to a convention in the big city of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, his life gets turned inside out under the influence of three convention veterans. This sort of fish-out-of-water comedy could have been a flimsy excuse for broad slapstick and absurd high jinks; instead, in the confident hands of director Miguel Arteta (The Good Girl, Chuck & Buck), Cedar Rapids becomes something more humane and, in a quiet way, more ambitious. Helms manages to make Tim genuine, a man-child but not a cartoon; the movie's situations skirt wackiness, yet always remain in the realm of something emotionally real. (The movie also reflects the influence of producers Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, who created the similarly character-rich movies Sideways, Almost Schmidt, and Election.) The whole cast hits the right notes, from such familiar faces as John C. Reilly (Magnolia, Talladega Nights), Anne Heche, and Sigourney Weaver to such stealthy character actors as Stephen Root (NewsRadio), Rob Corddry (Hot Tub Time Machine), Isiah Whitlock Jr. (The Wire), and Alia Shawkat (Arrested Development). Cedar Rapids is sweet without being cloying, funny without being manic, and even a little sad at times, without ever turning up the violins on the soundtrack. It's an honest movie, and there are all too few of them out there. --Bret Fetzer
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Louie: Season One (2010)
dir. Louis C.K.
Great series, but I wasn't head-over-heels in love with it like a lot of critics were. I thought the episodes near the end of the season fell flat and did nothing for me. I appreciate some of the risks he took like the God episode, but they just weren't funny for long stretches of time.
Product Decsription:
Hapless comic Louie (Louie C.K.) contends with wisecracking doctors, stoner neighbors, and teenage bullies while struggling to raise his two young daughters in New York City in first season of the hit F.X. comedy series LOUIE.
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Kiss Me Deadly: The Criterion Collection (1955)
dir. Robert Aldrich
Product Decsription:
In this atomic adaptation of Mickey Spillane’s novel, directed by Robert Aldrich (What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, The Dirty Dozen), the good manners of the 1950s are blown to smithereens. Ralph Meeker (Paths of Glory, The Dirty Dozen) stars as snarling private dick Mike Hammer, whose decision one dark, lonely night to pick up a hitchhiking woman sends him down some terrifying byways. Brazen and bleak, Kiss Me Deadly is a film noir masterpiece as well as an essential piece of cold war paranoia, and it features as nervy an ending as has ever been seen in American cinema.
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Eclipse Series 27: Raffaello Matarazzo's Runaway Melodramas - The Criterion Collection (Chains / Tormento / Nobody's Children / The White Angel) (1949)
dir. Raffafllo Matarazzo
Product Decsription:
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, film critics, international festivalgoers, and other studious viewers were swept up by the tide of Italian neorealism. Meanwhile, mainstream Italian audiences were indulging in a different kind of cinema experience: the sensational, extravagant melodramas of superstar director, Raffaello Matarazzo. These galvanic hits about splintered lovers and broken homes, all written by Aldo De Benedetti and starring mustachioed matinee idol, Amedeo Nazzari and icon of feminine purity, Yvonne Sanson, luxuriate in delirious plot twists and overheated religious symbolism. Four of them, each more unbridled and entertaining than the last, are collected here, chronicles of men and women on winding roads to redemption.
Four-DVD Box Set Includes: Chains After years of working mostly on comedies and literary adaptations, Raffaello Matarazzo turned to melodrama with this intense tale of a tight-knit working-class family shattered by temptation. There’s a touch of noir in Chains (Catene), in which the virtuous yet earthy Yvonne Sanson, as the devoted wife of a mechanic (Amedeo Nazzari), finds herself unwillingly drawn back toward a criminal ex-lover.
1949, 94 minutes, Black & White, Monaural, In Italian with English subtitles, 1.33:1 aspect ratio
Tormento Anna (Sanson) flees her home, where she has been victimized for years by her spineless father’s mean-spirited second wife, to be with her lover (Nazzari), an honest businessman yet to make his fortune. When he is accused of a murder he didn’t commit, the couple’s domestic tranquillity is upended, and a desperate Anna must rely on her cruel stepmother for support for her child.
1950, 98 minutes, Black & White, Monaural, In Italian with English subtitles, 1.33:1 aspect ratio
Nobody’s Children Bursting at the seams as it is with outlandish twists and turns, Nobody’s Children (I figli del nessuno) is only the first half of Matarazzo’s supersized diptych of melodramas, which chronicles the labyrinthine misfortunes of a couple torn cruelly apart by fate (and some meddling villains). When Guido (Nazzari), a young count, falls for Luisa (Sanson), the poor daughter of one of the miners who works at his family’s quarry, his mother and her nefarious henchman scheme epically to separate the two forever.
1952, 96 minutes, Black & White, Monaural, In Italian with English subtitles, 1.33:1 aspect ratio
The White Angel In The White Angel (L’angelo bianco), Matarazzo’s sequel to his blockbuster Nobody’s Children, the perpetually put-upon Guido and Luisa (the Italian director’s eternal star couple, Nazzari and Sanson) return for a new round of trials and tribulations. This time, the reversals of fortune are even more insanely ornate, a plot twist involving doppelgängers beats Vertigo to the punch by three years, and the whole thing climaxes with a jaw-dropping women-in-prison set piece.
1955, 100 minutes, Black & White, Monaural, In Italian with English subtitles, 1.33:1 aspect ratio
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Unknown (2011)
dir. Jaume Collet-Serra
Product Decsription:
The surprise hit Taken, from 2008, contained a number of red meat pleasures, but chief among them was Liam Neeson's reinvention as an action hero, turning his trademark wounded brusqueness and gentle-giant physique towards new, head-clunking avenues. Despite an ad campaign that makes it appear to be a direct action-packed continuation of that earlier film, Unknown proves to be a somewhat different creature--a sleek mystery that occasionally gives in to temptation and lets its hulking star call down the righteous thunder. Based on a novel by Didier Van Cauwelaert, the story follows a mild-mannered botanist in Berlin with his wife (Mad Men's January Jones) for a mysterious scientific conference. After a freak car accident, he wakes up in the hospital with scrambled memories, missing identification, and--most ominously--someone else claiming to be him. Director Jaume Collet-Serra, previously responsible for the admirably berserko Orphan, handles the early paranoiac cloak-and-dagger passages with aplomb (and delivers one quick beaut of a car chase), but proves less sure-footed when the story drifts towards more conventional Bourne-style punch-ups. Thankfully, Neeson does a fine job keeping things grounded whenever the narrative starts to wander, with able support from Diane Kruger as a cab driver unwillingly along for the ride. There's the germ of a genuinely intriguing, thoughtful thriller inside Unknown--particularly during a superbly minimalist scene between supporting cast members Frank Langella and Bruno Ganz--but it mostly seems content to stay within the realm of a high-pedigreed, reasonably taut action film. Which isn't all that bad of a thing, really. --Andrew Wright
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The Eagle (2011)
dir. Kevin Macdonald
Product Decsription:
Epic filmmaking has fallen out of favor, but The Eagle fights hard to bring it back. Marcus Aquila (Channing Tatum) chose to lead a Roman garrison in occupied Britain because that's where his father lost a military standard--a metal eagle, representing the glory of imperial Rome--on an expedition into the northern wilds. To reclaim his family honor, Aquila sets off into native territory to recover the eagle, with only a slave named Esca (Jamie Bell) to help him--but the more Aquila learns about Esca's history, the more he has reason to doubt his slave's loyalty. The Eagle starts with engaging momentum; this is a work of fiction, but there's an impressive commitment to the details of life, evoking the sights, sounds, and smells of a raw and brutal time. (Director Kevin Macdonald began as a documentarian, which no doubt contributes to his appreciation for grit and sweat.) Tatum is not the most versatile actor but he has enough solid charisma to anchor the movie; Bell's fluid emotional presence keeps their relationship dynamic. The movie loses steam in the last third, as the outcome is never really in doubt and the plot mechanics start to feel a bit rote. But for anyone with an interest in the era, or who simply enjoys a taste of blood and thunder, The Eagle has pleasures aplenty. --Bret Fetzer
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