United 93 (Universal) A suggestion to those who’ve put off watching the year’s most wrenching and essential film: Before rolling the feature, first watch the documentary in which the families of those who died on the plane give the filmmakers their blessing, without reservation. If the mother, father, and sister…
The Abbott and Costello Show: 100th Anniversary Collection, Season One (Passport) Ace Ventura Deluxe Double Feature (Warner Bros.) Amarcord: The Criterion Collection (Criterion) Anne of Avonlea (Koch Vision) Blade Runner: Director’s Cut (Warner Bros.) Broken Trail (Sony) Clive Barker’s The Plague (Sony) Commander in Chief: 2-Disc Inaugural Edition Part 2…
Granted, this might seem like a jarringly odd comparison, but like the recent dud Phat Girlz, Heading South deals with the hot-button issue of middle-age women discovering their sexuality anew thanks to the efforts of muscular black men with exotic accents whose standards of female beauty are more flexible than…
Low, which is to say no, expectations can be a wonderful thing; expect nothing, and maybe you’ll get that little outta-nowhere sumpin-sumpin that turns an otherwise unfulfilling occurrence into a vaguely rewarding experience. It’s not like Invincible boasts the most promising of credentials: a first-time filmmaker (Ericson Core, the cinematographer…
Like the shambling VW van its hapless characters steer from Albuquerque to Redondo Beach, this antic extended sitcom from first-time feature makers Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris is a rickety vehicle that travels mostly downhill. When his seven-year-old daughter (Abigail Breslin) gets a surprise slot in a beauty contest, a…
Arrested Development: Season Three (Fox) The final collection of Arrested Development discs feels sadly incomplete: only 13 episodes this time, the result of Fox’s inability to attract viewers to one of TV’s greatest comedies and the network’s unwillingness to give it a full farewell. But none of that diminishes the…
Akeelah and the Bee (Lions Gate) American Gun (IFC) The Castle of Cagliostro (Manga) Desperate Housewives: Season Two (Buena Vista) Stephen King’s Desperation (Lions Gate) Friends With Money (Sony) Iron Island (Kino) Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (Paramount) Lonesome Jim (IFC) Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World (Warner Bros.)…
Snakes on a Plane represents the ideal of contemporary major-studio filmmaking — which is to say, major-studio marketing. Who needs word-of-mouth screenings or critics when you can sell the four-word pitch as written on a napkin? It points to a future that takes all the guesswork out of moviegoing. A…
One of the weakest and most ridiculous aspects of popular culture is its narcissistic now-ness. There’s often no then or later, and without past experience or the messy knowledge of life, modern entertainment media often seems poached in a neurotic teenage brainpan, entranced with its own ignorant tunnel vision. A…
The press notes for Pulse would have you believe it predates many of the “J-horror” films that have been remade for American audiences, but that doesn’t seem to be true. It predates the U.S. remakes, yes, but not the originals, and it definitely borrows a trick or two. In the…
Veronica Mars: The Complete Second Season (Warner Bros.) Any concept along the lines of “high school hottie solves crimes” is bound to make for watchable TV, but who would have expected this? Equal parts 90210 teen soap, murder mystery, and comedy, Veronica Mars pulls you in with its sharp writing,…
The Apartment (Lions Gate) The Bill Cosby Show: Season One (Shout! Factory) The Blue Light (Pathfinder) Conviction: The Complete Series (Universal) Dances With Wolves: Extended Cut (MGM) Film Geek (First Run) House, M.D.: Season Two (Universal) Invasion: The Complete Series (Warner Bros.) Just My Luck (Fox) The Maid (Tartan) On…
If, at this remove, we can imagine Vienna in the late 1890s, we behold a great imperial capital in ferment. Gustav Mahler is not only reinventing the harmonic structure of serious music, but also he is getting his head seriously shrunk by Sigmund Freud. Arnold Schoenberg takes painting lessons from…
Luis Moro ignored restrictions on filming in Cuba to make the drama Love & Suicide during a 2003 trip to the island, and he obviously has a passion for the place. This passion fuels Moro’s charm as an actor with a central role. But as coscreenwriter of the film, now…
As a consideration of the power of storytelling — and the urge to mythologize one’s own life as well as the lives of others — The Night Listener could serve as creepy paranoid cousin to the current Lady in the Water. The specters of J.T. LeRoy and James Frey haunt…
Apocalypse Now: The Complete Dossier (Paramount) It’s all here, more or less: the 1979 theatrical cut of Francis Ford Coppola’s harrowing and still-hypnotic Joseph Conrad-in-Vietnam adaptation, the 49-minutes-longer-but-feels-24-minutes-shorter 2001 Redux edition, Marlon Brando’s entire 17-minute “The Hollow Men” monologue, even more “lost” and deleted scenes (including a spooky-shocking one, in…
Benito (Lions Gate) Cape of Good Hope (New Yorker) Clark Gable Collection, Volume 1 (Fox) Don’t Tell (Lions Gate) The Hard Corps (Sony) Hong Kong Phooey: The Complete Series (Turner) Hoot (New Line) James Stewart: The Signature Collection (Warner Bros.) Land of the Blind (Bauer) Lemming (Strand) L’Enfant (Sony) Machined…
World Trade Center is about just that — the attacks on, and the collapse of, the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. But 45 minutes in, a viewer might easily forget the movie is set during that nightmarish day. There is little talk of terrorism and scant suggestion that a…
If only. No one buys the farm in this Heathers-wannabe teen “satire,” a term used so loosely it’ll fly off in a stiff breeze. But the title is difficult to argue with, unless it’s to maintain that we’d all be better off if the film’s entire roster of characters had…
Brick (Universal) Rian Johnson’s feature debut as writer-director will wind up as one of the year’s best films. A film noir set in a modern-day high school, it’s Sam Spade roaming Ridgemont High; kids get doped up and knocked up and even rubbed out while speaking pulp-novel slang, but the…
Adam and Steve (TLA) Back Woods (Terror Vision) Beautiful People: The Complete Series (Sony) Clone (Image) Damon Wayans’ Last Stand (Fox) Frat Boy Collection (Fox) Gilles’ Wife (Koch Lorber) Ghost in a Teeny Bikini (Image) Grounded for Life: Season 3 (Anchor Bay) The Hidden Blade (Tartan) Inside Man (Universal) Jayne…
The old Lucas/Spielberg stunt of turning B-movie peekaboos into E-ticket thrill rides remains the industry standard — to the virtual exclusion of other multiplex fare, particularly when school’s out. But as not every kid who remade Raiders in Super 8 either gave up the dream or morphed into Michael Bay,…
