New Releases On Blu Ray & DVD: 6/4/13

The lowest grossing and most critically panned of the long running DIE HARD series, John Moore’s A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD, comes out today in a 2-disc Blu Ray edition, packaged with DVD + Digital Copy, and on a single disc DVD. The fifth in the popular Bruce Willis action franchise is packed with Special Features including an extended cut of the movie, commentary by Director John Moore and First Assistant Director Mark Cotone, deleted scenes, plus a bevy of featurettes like “Anatomy of a Car Chase,” VFX sequences, storyboards, and something called “Maximum McClane.”

If you missed it in the theaters, as most people did, and are partial to John McClane, who calls himself “The 007 of Plainfield, New Jersey,” being able to again say “Yipee Ki-Yay motherfucker! (he couldn’t in the last one as it was PG-13), then this is the release for you.

Jonathan Levine's zombie rom com WARM BODIES hits Blu ray (+ Digital Copy and UltraViolet) and DVD today. The movie, which I dissed in my review during its theatrical run in February, has a bevy of bonus material including a Commentary with Director Jonathan Levine and Actors Nicholas Hoult and Teresa Palmer, gag reel, deleted scenes, a bunch of featurettes, and the Screen Junkies snippet of Zombie Acting Tips with Rob Corddry.

Another fairly forgettable film from earlier this year, Seth Gordon’s IDENTITY THIEF, starring Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy, is also out today. Available in a 2-disc Blu ray set (+ Digital Copy, DVD, and UltraViolet), or 1 disc DVD, the sloppy comedy can be seen in both theatrical and unrated cuts, with several featurettes, alternate takes, and a gag reel. Read how un-amused I was by it in my review last February: “The Soon To Be Forgotten Off Season Folly Of IDENTITY THIEF” (2/8/13).

Carl Brunker’s 3D animated Canadian production, ESCAPE FROM PLANET EARTH, a family film I didn’t even notice in its theatrical release, drops today in a deluxe 3-disc Blu ray edition (+ Digital Copy, DVD, and UltraViolet) and a single disc DVD. Special Features: Commentary with Director Brunker, a few “Making Of” featurettes, Alternate Takes, Deleted Scenes, and Music Featurettes. Rob Corddry is involved in this one too, for whatever that's worth.

TV show sets releasing today on Blu ray and DVD: Falling Skies: The Complete Second Season, Breaking Bad: The Fifth Season, Pretty Little Liars: The Complete Third Season (there are three seasons of that already?!!?), and Appleseed XIII: Complete Series (Limited Edition), whatever the Hell that is.

If you’re looking for some Country music related titles, there’s the Lifetime Original Movie RING OF FIRE (DVD only), from GRACE OF MY HEART director Allison Anders, which tells the same story as the Johnny Cash/June Carter Cash biopic WALK THE LINE, but from June's point of view. Jewell steps into shoes previously worn by Resse Witherspoon, while Big Love/American Horror Story star Matt Ross takes on the Man in Black. The movie is better than it looks like - i.e. that awful DVD cover, but it's still pretty bad. Still, a full-length Biography special on Johnny Cash is included as a special feature so that alone may make it worthwhile for Cash fans.

Another Country title out today is Harry Thomason's THE LAST RIDE (2012), starring Henry Thomas, Jesse James, and The Big Bang Theory's Kaley Cuoco. Haven't seen it so I can't vouch for it, but it only having one Special Feature, a brief featurette, doesn't bode well.

In the old movies making their debut on Blu ray department there's EARTHQUAKE (1974), THE SHADOW (Alec Baldwin's version!) (1994), The MAD MAX Trilogy (the first and second have been available before on the format, but this is the first time for the third one: MAD MAX BEYOND THUNDERDOME, also available as a stand alone Blu ray), MIDWAY (1976), and Gene Saks' 1968 comedy classic THE ODD COUPLE.

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WHAT MAISIE KNEW Isn't Just KRAMER VS. KRAMER From The Kid's Point-Of-View

Now playing in the Triangle area exclusively at the Rialto Theater in Raleigh:

WHAT MAISIE KNEW 

(Dirs. Scott McGehee & David Siegel, 2012)

It’s a scene that we’ve seen many times – a husband and wife are feuding, having a vicious argument, and the film cuts to a shot, usually in a dark doorway on the side, of their scared kid witnessing the row with a tear in his/her eye. But then it cuts back to the couple and stays with them.

In a welcome contrast, Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s modern New York City-set update of Henry James’ 1897 book, has a scene near the beginning that has the arguing parents (Julianne Moore and Steve Coogan) going at it, but shows us their daughter Maisie, played by the 6-year old Onata Aprile, maneuvering her way through the apartment to avoid them as she finds money to pay the pizza delivery guy that they are oblivious to.

We can tell that Maisie is used to her folks fighting like she’s not there, and she even goes about playing a game of tic tac toe with the nanny (Scottish actress Joanna Vanderham) as they eat while Moore and Coogan continue bickering in the background.

Rougly 10 minutes in, we get the closest to the standard scene I described above in my opening paragraph, but the child doesn’t cry - she just observes quietly with concern.

WHAT MAISIE KNEW is almost completely told from Maisie’s perspective. We only hear the fragments of her parent’s feud that she hears, and we often see things from her line of sight.

Maisie sees her parents split up, then take up with new lovers, the snobby rich art dealer Coogan with the nanny Vanderham; the rock star singer Moore (they modernized the parents' occupations, of course) with a sensitive nice guy bartender (True Blood's Alexander Skarsgård), and all Maisie can do is take it in with her wide worried eyes.

As she’s shuttled between her increasingly selfish and assholish parents, we see that her mother’s new young husband Skarsgård, and Coogan’s new young wife Vanderham genuinely care for the little girl, and might have a thing for each other as well.

When seeing some of Skarsgård’s affection for her daughter, Moore acidically tells him: “You don’t get a bonus for making her fall in love with you.”

Nancy Doyne and Carroll Cartwright’s screenplay has a lot of insightful awareness as to how children process the doings of adults. Aprile presents Skarsgård for show and tell at School explaining to the other kids: “My father married my nanny, so the court made my Mommy get married too.”

It shouldn’t just be seen as KRAMER VS. KRAMER from the kid’s point-of-view however, there’s a more contemplative tone in which this film isn’t about taking sides or having someone experience a profound realization (well, there may be a bit of that at the end), and its observations are as open minded as Maisie is trying to be.

Amid all the messiness of the grown-ups’ relationships, Aprile’s Maisie just wants to play, draw, watch TV, i.e. be a kid, and retaining that innocence is near impossible around all the daily dysfunctions. Skarsgård and Vanderham recognize this, but to Coogan and Moore, Maisie is little more than a legal accessory. The real sadness of this situation is profoundly palpable in the film’s third act.

WHAT MAISIE KNEW is a rarity, especially during this overblown summer movie season, a well done drama about a child finding their footing away from their petty parents. There may be one too many shots of Aprile looking blankly at behavior she can’t comprehend yet, but it’s overall portrait of a child caught between the unhealthy lifestyles of blood relatives and the unconditional care given by relative strangers is a work of beauty.

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LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED Needs More Than Likable Leads And Pretty Scenery

Opening today in the Triangle area at the Raleigh Grande 16 in Raleigh, and the Chelsea Theater in Chapel Hill:

LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED

(Dir. Susanne Bier, 2012)

With its lush yellow-toned poster featuring Trine Dyrholm in the arms of Pierce Brosnan against the backdrop of the seaside village of Sorrento, Italy, and its sun-drenched opening shots of that location set to the Dean Martin standard “That’s Amore,” Susanne Bier’s newest film sets us up for a piece of chick flick cheese.

And for the most part it is, but thankfully, even with the rom com trappings of a wedding that brings two people together that aren’t the bride and groom, LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED largely doesn’t go for cheap laughs. It’s a rom drama you see, and when it sticks to the strengths of the likable leads it has a genuine heart to it. It’s when it strays to the underwritten and predictable predicaments of the rest of the cast, that it falters.

Dyrholm, unknown ‘round these parts but a star in Denmark, plays a long married woman who finds out her husband (Kim Bodnia) has been cheating on her while she’s been undergoing treatment for Cancer. Because of the chemo, the demure Dyrholm wears a long blonde wig (the film’s Danish title, DEN SKALDEDE FRISOR translates to THE BALD HAIRDRESSER).

Without her no good husband, Dyrholm travels to Italy from Copenhagen to go to her daughter’s (Molly Blixt Egelind) wedding, but on the way at the airport she runs into (literally in her car) Brosnan as one of modern cinema’s most enduring clichés – the cold overworked businessman who’s always on the phone, and doesn’t have his priorities in place. Brosnan is on his way to the same wedding, that of his son (Sebastian Jessen) to Egelind, so, of course, they share a cab when they get there.

You know the drill – the couple, inevitably fated to be lovers, are annoyed by one another, but circumstances bring them together. Brosnan is a widower whose deceased wife’s sister (the delightfully obnoxious Paprika Steen, veteran of two previous films with director Bier) has had the hots for him for ages.

Meanwhile, it’s pretty obvious that Brosnan’s son Jessen, is gay so there’s that thread in this not fully fleshed out farcical framework, as well as the oafish Bodnia’s floozy fiancé (Christiane Schaumburg-Müller) that he stupidly brings along to the event with no consideration to Dyrholm. These all appear to be misplaced conventions for an all out comedy all bouncing off each other in a lavish Italian villa, and they clash inappropriately with the chemistry Brosnan and Dyrholm have together.

Folks should also note, especially folks that hate subtitles, that this is a Foreign film for the most part. The former James Bond, Brosnan, speaks the Queen’s English, but his character is fluent in other languages, which is handy because 70% of the movie is spoken in Danish.

Gorgeously shot by cinematographer Morten Søborg, LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED has its charms, but it really needs more than the likability of its leads and its pretty scenery to make it anything special.

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