RoosterFlix DVD Picks for December 23rd

It's an incredibly slow week thanks to Christmas, so I'm just gonna make this short and (not really) sweet.

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Ghost Town (2008)
dir. David Koepp

Product Decsription:
Ricky Gervais is brilliant in Ghost Town, playing an unnervingly rude dentist, Bertram, who dies for a few minutes during surgery and acquires the unwanted ability to see ghosts. Chased throughout Manhattan by a gaggle of restless spirits begging him to take care of their unfinished business on Earth, Bertram turns them all away except Frank (Greg Kinnear). The latter, a rogue who cheated on his archaeologist widow, Gwen (Téa Leoni), wants Bertram to intervene in a romance between Gwen and a starchy activist (Bill Campbell). Misanthropic Bertram has to polish his relationship patter, but ends up sounding a lot like Gervais' infamous character in the original The Office, unable to complete a sentence without making others uncomfortable. In time, of course, Bertram falls for the wonderful Gwen, setting up a bunch of overlapping conflicts. Cowritten and directed by David Koepp (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull), Ghost Town walks a fine line between comic freshness and a story idea with elements that have become overly familiar in movies and on television. Kinnear and Leoni have never been better on screen, but Ghost Town is well worth seeing because no one like Gervais has previously played the hapless hero in a high-concept film such as this one. With Gervais doing his familiar, hilariously discomfiting thing, it really doesn't matter what kind of movie Ghost Town is. Happily, it's a pretty good film in every respect. --Tom Keogh

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Eagle Eye (2008)
dir. D.J. Caruso

Product Decsription:
The "cell phone thriller" is becoming a genre unto itself, and Eagle Eye should be considered a key example of the form. Frankly preposterous but compulsively watchable, this movie puts Shia LaBeouf in a mess of trouble instigated by a mysterious telephone voice. If he doesn't follow orders, dire things will happen--although when he does follow orders, the consequences are pretty dire, anyway. Also being blackmailed is a single mom (Michelle Monaghan) receiving similar phone calls. Why are they being jerked around by the purring female voice, and why is the road leading to Washington, D.C.? Actually, you won't have time to contemplate these questions, because director D.J. Caruso (who guided LaBeouf in Disturbia) keeps the action going at the customary breakneck pace. This is a wise move, because the real questions you'd likely be asking have to do with the plausibility of events on a minute-by-minute basis (most notably: how could Mysterious Phone Voice possibly know that the two pigeons would survive the hoops she makes them fly through, each one more death-defying than the last?). The actors tumble through this mayhem like scattering bowling pins, including Billy Bob Thornton and Rosario Dawson as government agents. Nobody has time to make much of an impression, and LaBeouf has much less room for puppydog charm than he did in Disturbia. Even that would be all right within the movie's berserk parameters, but the really irritating thing is the way the tacked-on final scenes reverse what would have been a heroic climax. No guts, no glory. --Robert Horton

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The Duchess (2008)
dir. Saul Dibb

Product Decsription:
Swaddled in whalebone and wigs, Keira Knightley steps into the restricted world of the Duchess of Devonshire, a royal lady popular with her subjects but stuck in an unhappy marriage. If this situation recalls Princess Diana (a descendent of the Duchess's family), so much the better for the purposes of director Saul Dibb and company; this film is eager to draw parallels with the unfortunate Lady Di, even if she is never directly mentioned. Knightley's unsuspecting girl is married off to the Duke (Ralph Fiennes), a distracted jerk who craves male sons, and obviously has never thought of women as anything other than a means to achieve an heir. When the Duchess launches her procreative career with a couple of daughters, well, the Duke begins to get nervous--and partners outside the marriage become increasingly appealing. The Duchess serves up lavish portions of Brit-movie staples: costumes (which, in Knightley's case, are nothing short of spectacular), landscapes,! and gorgeous music (by Rachel Portman). If it falls short in some vague way, perhaps it's because the film is a mostly one-note affair, meaning exactly what it seems to mean at every moment. Charlotte Rampling appears too briefly as Knightley's mother, and Dominic Cooper and Hayley Atwell (from Brideshead Revisited), rising stars both, contribute attractive lures for the principals. They prove the old movie adage: there's a lot to be said for eye candy. --Robert Horton

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Savage Grace (2007)
dir. Tom Kalin

Product Decsription:
Set across a stunning backdrop ranging from New York to Paris to Cadaqués, Savage Grace is the incredible true story of a scandal that even today remains shocking. The beautiful Barbara Daly (Academy Award-nominee Julianne Moore; The Hours, Boogie Nights) marries above her social class to the dashing heir of the Bakelite plastics fortune, Brooks Baekeland (Stephen Dillane of the HBO miniseries "John Adams"). The birth of the couple's only child, Tony (Eddie Redmayne of The Good Shepard), intensifies the already volatile marriage. As Tony matures, he becomes an unwilling pawn in the psychosexual games of his parents, and the seeds for a tragedy of spectacular decadence are sown which challenge even the most shocking taboos. Tom kalin's (Swoon) return to cinema has dazzled and stunned audiences from the Cannes to the Sundance Film Festivals.

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Zatoichi the Blind Swordsman, Vol. 5-8 (1964)
dir. Kenji Misumi

Product Decsription:
The opening scene places Zatoichi on a boat with a group of Samurai, who decide to hunt down Ichi after he slashes one of them. Within a few moments there is a heated band of Samurai demanding revenge, but a mysterious one-armed swordsman Yoshiro (Kenzaburo Joh) steps in and maims many of the swordsmen. Ichi's problems really begin when he is recruited to massage the lord at the House of Kuroda. The lord has a 'condition' (he seems insane), and they decide that Zatoichi must be killed so this secret cannot spread. Boss Kanbei is hired to kill Zatoichi, and he discovers that Ichi is on his way to Joshoji Temple to pay his respects to Hirate Miki exactly one year after killing him.

Yoshiro is also in trouble as he is a wanted gangster, and Sukegoro (whom Ichi stayed with for 10 days in the original) expels Yoshiro from his residence. He then follows him with an armed guard in order to capture him. The finale involves Ichi fighting with Kanbei's men at the same bridge where he fought Hirate one year earlier. Zatoichi slaughters all of Kanbei's men and before he can finish off Boss Kanbei, Yoshiro steps in to fight his brother. Both have a deadly grudge to bear against each other. Yoshiro stoles Ichi's love, Chiyo, away from him and Ichi crippled Yoshiro. Both are badly injured in the duel but manage to escape Sukegoro's men by jumping in the river. Yoshiro's wounds are lethal but Ichi survives and exacts his revenge on Boss Sukegoro.

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Baghead (2008)
dir. Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass



Product Decsription:
While the Duplass Brothers were shooting their last feature film The Puffy Chair, a crew member raised the question "what's the scariest thing you can think of?" Someone immediately said "a guy with a bag on his head staring into your window." Some agreed, but some thought it was downright ridiculous and, if anything, funny (but definitely not scary). Thus, Baghead was born, an attempt to take the absurdly low-concept idea of a "guy with a bag on his head" and make a funny, truthful, endearing film that, maybe, just maybe, was a little bit scary, too.

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Beethoven's Big Break (2008)
dir. Mike Elliott

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Product Decsription:
hahahahahaha

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