New Releases On Blu Ray & DVD: 6/11/13

The two biggest titles releasing today, Sam Raimi’s OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL (no colon) and Tommy Wirkola’s HANSEL & GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS, are both the stuff of modernized fairy tale fodder, which makes it hard to believe that Tim Burton had nothing to do with either of them.

Anyway, OZ, starring James Franco, Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz, and a bunch of green screen/CGI effects, which I wrote was “Not a bomb, but no magical masterpiece either” (3/8/13) is available now in the standard Blu-ray / DVD / Digital Copy package. Special Features include six featurettes: “Walt Disney and the Road to Oz” (10 minutes), “My Journey in Oz” (a 22 minute sampler of a video journal by Franco). “China Girl and the Suspension of Disbelief” (5 min), “Before Your Very Eyes: From Kansas To Oz” (11 min), “Metamorphosis” (8 min), “Mr. Elfman’s Musical Concoctions” (7 min), and 5 minutes of bloopers. My review from its theatrical release last March is here.

HANSEL & GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS, starring Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton, which I liked a lot less, is out in a likewise Blu-ray / DVD / Digital Copy edition, but adds a UltraViolet copy. Its Special Features are only 3 featurettes: “Reinventing Hansel & Gretel” (15 min), “The Witching Hours” (9 min), and “Meet Edward the Troll” (5 min). None of these extras are likely to sway me from re-thinking my description of the film last January that went like this: “From the same lack of inspiration that brought you ‘Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter’” comes this muddled mixture of the action genre with fairy tale mythology.” Read the rest of my review here.

Having only seen the film on a crappy truncated VHS release back in the ‘80s, it’s cool to see that Paul McCartney and Wings’ ‘70s concert film ROCKSHOW is out now on both Blu ray and DVD, marking the first time in over 30 years that the full over 2 hour program is available to the public. There’s only one bonus extra, a 10 minute backstage featurette entitled “A Very Lovely Party,” but the 30 songs of vintage Beatles, solo, and Wings classics from McCartney and crew’s 1976 tour of North America contained in this package should be satisfying enough on their own.

I skipped Ric Roman Waugh’s SNITCH starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson when it was released theatrically early this year, but folks who are into such action genre exercises should know that its new release (Blu-ray + UltraViolet + Digital Copy) is outfitted with Special Features like a 50 minute ‘Making of’ doc entitled “Privileged Information,” commentary with Director Waugh and Editor Jonathan Chibnall, and deleted scenes.

A more appealing looking title from earlier this year out today on both formats is Im Sang-Soo’s South Korean erotic thriller THE TASTE OF MONEY, available with sparse extras (“Behind the Scenes” featurette, trailer) on both 1-disc Blu ray and DVD editions. Other new movies hitting home video today include: Quentin Dupieux’s WRONG (Blu Ray + Digital Copy), and Jared Moshe’s 2012 Western DEAD MAN’S BURDEN (only on DVD).

Last week, this New Releases feature reported about the release of the Lifetime TV movie RING OF FIRE, a biopic about June Carter Cash as played by Jewel. This week, another RING OF FIRE comes out, but this one is a TV miniseries produced by REELZ about an oil rig causing a volcanic eruption in a small town starring Michael Vartan, Terry O'Quinn, and Ian Tracey. Since end-of-the-world scenarios are hot right now, maybe more folks than who saw it when it aired last March will check out this release (available in both 1-disc Blu ray and DVD editions), but probably not. Its lone Special Feature is a Sneak Peek of Reelz’s follow-up miniseries Eve of Destruction, which aired in April and is releasing next month on Blu ray and DVD.

Despite getting mixed reviews and a lot of internet ridicule for its unrealistic and pretentious agenda, Aaron Sorkin’s preachy HBO series The Newsroom was renewed for a second season that premieres next month (July 14, 2013). Folks who want to catch up with the trials and tribulations of self righteous news anchor Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels), his neurotic executive producer (Emily Mortimer) and his mostly inexperienced staff at the fictional Atlantis Cable News (ACN) channel can pick up The Newsroom: The Complete First Season now out on 4-disc Blu ray (+ DVD Combo + Digital Copy) and DVD sets. 

Special Features include “The Rundown,” (an 25 minute long discussion about the show with Sorkin, Daniels, Mortimer, Waterson, executive producer Alan Poul and co-executive producer Greg Mottola), five commentaries with Sorkin, Poul, Daniels, Waterston, Mortimer and others, “Mission Control” (a behind-the –scenes featurette), “Inside the Episodes” (individual featurettes about each episodes), and deleted scenes. Now folks who loved hating the show will have a lot more material to “hate watch.”

The complete first season of Netflix’s much hyped series House of Cards, starring Kevin Spacey as ruthless U.S. Representative Frank Underwood, hits Blu ray and DVD today in 4-disc sets. The very entertaining and addictive show, episodes of which were directed by David Fincher (SE7EN, FIGHT CLUB, ZODIAC, THE SOCIAL NETWORK) and Joel Schumacher (a much less impressive filmography including THE LOST BOYS, BATMAN FOREVER, and THE NUMBER 23 - see what I mean?), also stars Robin Wright, Kate Mara, and Carey Stoll. Like many people did when all 13 episodes dropped on the streaming service last February, you can still watch the whole season in a little over half a day, because this release has no bonus material (no commentaries, featurettes, nothing) to add to the running time. No word yet about when the second season, now in production, will air.

Despite its similar title to the Will Smith sci-fi summer bomb AFTER EARTH, the History Channel’s 3-Disc Collection, AFTER PEOPLE, out today on DVD only, is a fascinating breakdown of what life on this planet would be like if the entire human population went extinct. Made up of 4 extended programs from the History Channel series Life After People, the set has no Special Features, but at its 288 minute running time, they’re really not needed. It may be too intensely scientific for some folks, but the insights and speculations, as well as all the CDI-ed global destruction, should strongly draw most interested viewers in.

On the older film front, titles new to Blu ray out today include a couple of early ‘70s Clint Eastwood Westerns (John Sturges’ JOE KIDD and Don Siegel’s TWO MULES FOR SISTER SARA), Phil Alden Robinson’s 1992 Robert Redford thriller/comedy SNEAKERS, and the Criterion Collection edition of Igmar Bergman’s 1957 classic WILD STRAWBERRIES.

More later…

LOOPER: A Compellingly Crafted Time Travel Thriller

Now playing at nearly every multiplex in Raleigh and the Triangle area:

LOOPER (Dir. Rian Johnson, 2012)

At first, it’s a bit jarring to see Joseph Gordon-Levitt made to look like Bruce Willis via prosthetic makeup. But Gordon-Levitt, has so got Willis’ mannerisms, and soft spoken voice down that the impression works, that is, until the real Willis shows up and it’s a little jarring again. However, it still works.

Set in Kansas City in 2044, Gordon-Levitt, as he tells us in his opening voice-over narration, is a low-level “Looper,” a hit-man who kills people that the mafia in 2074 sends back via illegal time travel technology. To close a looper’s contract, they send back the older version to be killed by their younger selves, and are paid off with gold bars. It’s a job that doesn’t attract “forward thinking people,” Gordon Levitt notes.

A frantic fellow looper (Paul Dano), when confronted with his older self, is unable to “close the loop,” as they call it, he goes into hiding in a floor safe in Gordon-Levitt’s apartment. A bearded wizened and jaded Jeff Daniels, as a gang boss from the future, offers a deal in which if Gordon-Levitt gives up Dano’s location, he can keep all the silver he’s been saving up. Gordon-Levitt takes the deal, but then finds out that his own loop is set to be closed.

Willis is able to escape from his younger self, upon appearing from the future, but not long after that they have a face-to-face at a diner, and Willis speaks of how, in 30 years, his wife (Qing Xu) will be murdered love by a powerful villain called “The Rainmaker.” Willis came back in time to kill the child who will grow up to be this bigwig baddie.

Did you get all that? Yes, it’s a movie in which the convolutions swirl around you, but you can’t help to get caught up in them. Even when the film downshifts from the expected, yet still engrossing action sequences (shoot-ups, chases, fight scenes, etc.), into a quieter second half that takes place on a farm owned by Emily Blunt, who just may be the mother of the future “Rainmaker,” its spell still holds you.

Willis doesn’t have a lot of dialogue, and doesn’t need much, but what he has, like when he talks of the woman whose life he’s trying save, he really sells. Considering his younger self to be a self absorbed junkie, Willis provides a gruff contrast to Gordon-Levitt’s stoic smoothness.

The rest of the well-chosen cast have their moments. Daniels basically has one major speech to give before spending the rest of the movie as an order barking heavy, but he pulls off both superbly.

Blunt, could be seen as a gratuitous love-interest for Gordon-Levitt, yet her frightened eyed delivery is “on,” and it’s fun to see her smoke an invisible cigarette (another thing to look forward to in the future).

A few of Daniels’ thugs are notable too - Noah Segan, as a clumsily trigger happy goon, and Garret Dillahunt as a much more professional assassin.

With its superb sci-fi premise, exemplary effects, and top-notch performances, Rian Johnson, who directed the brilliant BRICK (also starring Gordon-Levitt), and the not-bad THE BROTHERS BLOOM, has compellingly crafted a well above average action thriller. Its ending might feel a little off, but the fact that it doesn’t allow easily for a sequel makes it all the more refreshing.

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AWAY WE GO: The Film Babble Blog Review

AWAY WE GO (Dir. Sam Mendes, 2009) 

 As a unmarried couple in their mid 30's, John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph roll with the punch of pregnancy without exaggerated comical reaction or cutesy comebacks. The same can be said for AWAY WE GO - Sam Mendes' follow-up to the cautionary tale period piece REVOLUTIONARY ROAD.

Krasinski and Rudolph live like college kids who have just moved in together. Their home is a broken down one story shack in the woods with no heat and cardboard covering one of the windows. "We don't even have the basic stuff figured out", Rudolph pouts one dark cold night after their power goes off.

Krasinski tries to console but she can't help but repeating: "I think we may be fuck-ups." With a baby on the way, the couple desire to live near family. Rudolph's parents are both deceased so this falls to Krasinski's parents, living close to them in Denver, played perfectly by Catherine O'Hara and Jeff Daniels. 

This safety blanket is pulled off abruptly when O'Hara and Daniels announce that they are moving to Belgium. "You're moving 3 thousand miles away from your granchild!" Krasinski exclaims. "I think it's more than 3 thousand," is his aloof mother's response. Rudolph proposes they travel to seek out a new home, preferably near family or close friends. With big white on black block letter titles telling us which destination is next continually ("AWAY TO...") we visit Phoenix, Tucson, Madison, Montreal, and Miami; each location introducing a bevy of curious characters.

Sure, there are obligatory quirks aplenty with such stand-outs as Maggie Gyllenhall's self righteous earth mother who refuses to put her children in strollers and Allison Janey's sobering examples of obnoxious parenting, but the film is always grounded in a realism rarely found at the movies today (especially in the blockbuster world of summer). Though I never expected Krasinski to make his patented 'did you get that?' look to the camera, his character is a lot like a bearded Jim from The Office - a well meaning, funny, and mildly neurotic guy who genuinely loves his girlfriend.

Rudolph (known largely for being a long running cast member on SNL) shows layers she has never shown before but in movies like a lead in IDIOCRACY or lost in the ensemble in A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION, how could she? Even with its multitude of standard issue sun drenched shots, poignant close-ups, and acoustic singer songwriter balladry (provided by Alexi Murdoch), this is a superior indie film to most. It has very little in the way of plot point payoffs or forced comedic contrivances. It just asks us to spend some time with a few likable characters at a crossroads. 

Dave Eggers, whose 2000 book "A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius" I highly recommend, is new to screenwriting yet this (co-written with his wife Vendela Vida) is a confident and accomplished debut. Mendes clears the air from the disturbing and foul feeling REVOLUTIONARY ROAD effectively and we are left with this sweet diversion. An "indie sleeper" if there ever was one, AWAY WE GO is quite a keeper.

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Apatow Arrives Again

So apparently from just about everything I read on the internets writer/producer/director Judd Apatow is the new king of cinema comedy. Apatow, whose credits include the cult TV series Freaks And Geeks, the 2005 hit THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN, and KNOCKED UP which was an early summer smash, now has another #1 movie - SUPERBAD (reviewed below). But wait a minute – he didn’t direct SUPERBAD. As this amusing New York Magazine blogpost tells us Greg Mattola did – Apatow was the producer. So why does it seem so much like Apatow was the director? Well, interviews with the cast members who pretty much were all in KNOCKED UP talk about taking notes from Apatow as much or more than they do Mattola and the film has more than one critic considering it part of Apatow’s series of immature-male-moves-forward-movies. Makes some sorta sense for this mass confusion I guess.

So on to the movie itself :

SUPERBAD (Dir. Greg Mattola, 2007) If you’ve heard anything about this movie you know the drill – we spend the day with a few foul mouthed teenagers trying to get laid. Yep - it’s like a zillion 80’s sex comedies as well as a homage to them at the same time. Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg wrote the semi-autobiographical screenplay when they were teenagers but got too old to play the parts themselves. So now we’ve got Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera) filling in and a great pair they are. Their kind of chemistry can’t be faked and when joined by Fogle (more referred to as McLovin because that’s his name on his fake ID) played by Christopher Mint Plasse, a lot of hilarious riffing flies through the air. McLovin has his own sideline adventure when he bemusedly befriends a couple of inept cops played by Rogen (he had to put himself in the movie somehow) and Saturday Night Live’s Bill Hader. That bit, while it contains some big laughs, feels more like a comic convention than say, some of the other true to life sloppy shenanigans on display. Much better than your average teen flick these days (and better than anything Kevin Smith has done in ages) SUPERBAD isn’t for those who dislike lots of profanity and dick jokes but just about everybody else will find it really funny.

And Now A Recent Release DVD :

THE LOOKOUT (Dir. Scott Frank, 2007) After a prom-night joyride turns deadly, survivor Joseph Gordon-Levitt lives a quiet life with a blind mentor room-mate (Jeff Daniels) spending most of his time dealing with his guilt and trying to get his sequencing in order. You see - his mind still hasn't recovered from the accident and he has to constantly take notes to remind himself of the order of his day's events. He's not as extreme a case as the guy from MEMENTO but far from fully functional. Gordon-Levitt works as a night-shift janitor in a small bank and is being targeted to be an unwilling participant in a bank heist by a gang of pure movie thugs led by Matthew Goode. This is where the conventions of Gordon-Levitt's condition are exposed as just another piece in the contrived plot puzzle. It seems to take place in a world with only a handful of characters including a friendly bumbling cop who brings Gordon-Levitt doughnuts and whose fate we can see coming way in advance. Also annoying is the thunderous rumbling sound that’s dubbed onto just about every scene. You know, the sound from so many thriller trailers – usually paired with quick cuts to underscore tension and jar us. It’s a suspense string pulling manipulation – CUT IT OUT! Despite the good acting and some solid direction throughout (the sequencing is in perfect order) it's unfortunate that a routine heist plot is the order of the day. Gordon-Levitt is good though - he proves that like his intense turn in BRICK that he can handle weighty material. With hope next time around he'll get something weightier than this.

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The Film Babble Blog Top Ten Movies Of 2005

What with the Oscar nominations being announced last week, the Golden Globes, and all them magazine lists I figured it was high time I get off my ass and update this blog and list : Film Babble Blog's Top Ten Movies Of 2005 01 PALINDROMES (Dir. Todd Solondz) Though ignored when first released and completely forgotten this awards season I believe this film will leave more of a mark on movie lover's psyches in years to come than crap like CRASH. Although not a sequel to WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE Solondz sets this in the same world with Weiner family values, white trash ethics, and plenty of good ole character assassination fun! 02 MARCH OF THE PENGUINS (Dir. Luc Jacquet) Yes it's a documentary that could play any night on PBS with little fanfare and it's a simple premise and all. but what a film-matic treat any way you look at it! And yes I just simply love penguins. It's about time they had a movie. Okay?!!? 03 CAPOTE (Dir. Bennett Miller) One of the few deserving Oscars this year went to Philip Seymour Hoffman for his dead-on portrayal in this moving movie - respectful to the times and the crime yet unforgiving and brutal to the man in the spotlight. 04 THE SQUID AND THE WHALE (Dir. Noah Baumbach) Divorce 80's style with parents played by Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney and their troubled offspring (Jesse Eisenberg and Owen Kline) - harsh but sharp with a great soundtrack (Loudon Wainwright III, Bert Jansch, and the plagiarized Pink Floyd). 05 NO DIRECTION HOME (Dir. Martin Scorsese) It was only given a small theatrical release in LA and NY but this long awaited Dylan at his prime powerhouse may be the finest rock doc ever. Period. 06 SARABAND (Dir. Igmar Bergman) Made for Swedish TV in 2003 this updating of SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE (again, not a sequel) finds Johann (Erland Josephson) and Marianne (Liv Ullman) re-uniting after 30 years to look back over their tortured existence. Johann : "I've ransacked My past now that I have the answer sheet". Heavy, man. 07 ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW (Dir. Miranda July) Quirky but not cloying...and funny too. 08 WALLACE AND GROMMIT : THE CURSE OF THE WERE RABBIT (Dir. Steve Box & Nick Park) 09 HEAD ON (Dir. Fatih Akin) 10 ENRON (Dir. Alex Gibney) Another damn documentary but such a damn neccessary one. More later...