City of Ember (2008)
dir. Gil Kenan
I enjoyed this, even though the lead actress in it, that girl from Atonement, is kind of annoying. It's kind of a wild, dystopian, underground, steampunkish fantasy that is good for what it is. Nothing groundbreaking. The god Bill Murray does not get enough screen time.
Product Decsription:
Light bulbs speckle the sky instead of stars in City of Ember, a fantasy in which a secret city has been built to preserve mankind from worldwide disaster. But over time, the purpose of the city is lost--and the city gradually decays. As power failures threaten to bring on the collapse of everything, young messenger Lina Mayfleet (Saoirse Ronan, Atonement) discovers damaged instructions for leaving the city. Her friend, pipeworker Doon Harrow (Harry Treadaway, Brothers of the Head), helps her find the hidden mechanisms that will let everyone escape...but the city's corrupt Mayor (Bill Murray) is more interested in personal gain and tries to stop Lina. City of Ember begins marvelously; the story unfolds smoothly, the production design is rich and engaging, the young leads are charming (Ronan is particularly good), and Murray is as superb as ever. Unfortunately, the movie starts to stumble; some plot turns are baffling (there seems to be some connective tissue left on the cutting room floor) and what should be an action climax flounders with subpar special effects. But even when the movie loses its sure-footedness, there are delightful moments and visual wonders. The strong supporting cast includes Tim Robbins, Mary Kay Place (Sweet Home Alabama), Mackenzie Crook (The Office), Toby Jones (Infamous), and Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Secrets & Lies). --Bret Fetzer
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Max Payne (2008)
dir. John Moore
It's no secret that most movies based on video games are pure garbage, and unfortunately it looks like that trend is alive and well with Max Payne. I mean, I never saw it but the trailers looked kinda cool.
Product Decsription:
Based on the video game from Rockstar, MAX PAYNE stars Mark Wahlberg as a New York City cop out to avenge his slain wife and child, and heaven help anyone who gets in his blood-strewn way. The trail leads him into a network of shady characters mixed up with an experimental drug that causes super strength and fearlessness, as well as wild hallucinations of winged angels and demons. As Max gets closer and closer to the truth, he finds himself the target of a massive police manhunt, and in the crosshairs of the powerful kingpin behind the racket; soon enough, the angels and demons become downright deadly. Olga Kurylenko (QUANTUM OF SOLACE) is a beautiful Russian party girl who winds up dead after a late-night visit to Max's pad; her assassin sister (Mila Kunis) first goes after Max, then tries to help him get some answers. Rap star Ludacris (here credited as Chris Bridges) is a tough internal affairs cop investigating Payne's behavior.
Shot in an impressively grungy palette of high-contrast grays and blacks, with snow and sheets of rain soaking the grim atmosphere, New York City is brilliantly morphed into something like Gotham City by way of Detroit, with a touch of X-FILES-style supernatural dread looming over everything. Director John Moore knows how to stage his action scenes: offices blow up, big chunks of rubble crush police cars, bodies and shattered glass suspend in mid-air for some of the slowest slow-mo moments in action film history. Fans of the video game and/or action movies in general should get a kick out of all the mega-loud insanity, stylish design, and Wahlberg, who never changes his mean expression, but still commands the screen.
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The Express (2008)
dir. Gary Fleder
Product Decsription:
Based on the real-life story of college football hero Ernie Davis, The Express will remind some moviegoers of the heart-tugging Brian's Song. Ernie Davis was a star athlete at Syracuse University and the first African American to win the Heisman Trophy. Unlike other winners of that era, he wasn't allowed to attend his banquet dinner because the venue didn't serve blacks. He died of leukemia at the age of 23 in 1963. That element of his story is well known to football fans. What the filmmakers concentrate on in The Express isn't just Davis' athletic prowess, but the relationship he had with his coach Ben Schwartzwalder (Dennis Quaid). Rob Brown (Stop-Loss, Coach Carter) lends both gravity and charm to the role of Davis. He plays Davis as a strong willed and moral young man who refuses to let racism and discrimination dominate his life. He joins a Jewish fraternity, gets along with his predominantly white teammates and shows respect for his family and coach. The film is wise not to present Schwartzwalder as wholly color blind. Though not overtly racist, he makes a few references that would not be acceptable in modern-day society. Overall though, the coach doesn't care what color his players are, as long as they share the common goal of winning. Quaid is well cast in the role, adding just the right amount of gruff mannerisms without becoming a caricature. Brown has the difficult task of adding suspense to a character where most of the audience already knows his fate. Still, he manages to keep moviegoers on their toes--hoping for a miracle that we know will never come. --Jae-Ha Kim
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MGM: When the Lion Roars (2008)
dir. Frank Martin
Product Decsription:
On April 24, 1924 the movies changed forever: the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio opened and soon assembled “more stars than there are in the heavens.” Patrick Stewart hosts this enthralling Emmy winner as Best Informational Series, a 3-part story of MGMs reign as Hollywoods class act and legendary entertainment empire. Bursting with memorable film clips, rare interviews, behind-the-scenes footage and insider info, this is a mother lode for film fans, profiling perfectionist moguls, glamorous and charismatic actors, innovative filmmakers and landmark movies. Experience the dramatic and romantic fire, singing and dancing magic, and sweeping epic adventure of Hollywoods greatest studio in this must-have 2-Disc DVD set.
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Chris Rock: Kill the Messenger (2008)
dir. Marty Callner
Not Chris Rock's best stand-up special, but still solid, and Rock is still one of the funniest guys on the planet. The thing that drove me nuts with this performance is all the jarring cuts in-between the three locations where he filmed this special. I guess I kind of got used to it, but it's completely pointless.
Product Decsription:
Four years after 2004's NEVER SCARED, Chris Rock returns with another hilarious standup performance in KILL THE MESSENGER. Intercutting between performances held in South Africa, London, and New York City, the program finds Rock riffing on the upcoming 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama, and (as always) the troubles between men and women. It's fascinating to watch how Rock improvises with each crowd, and their differing reactions. Thankfully, the effect never becomes tiresome or overdone, and as always it's Rock's passionate delivery, razor-sharp timing, and fearless take on life that take center stage.
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El Norte - Criterion COllection (2007)
dir. Gregory Nava
Product Decsription:
Brother and sister Enrique and Rosa flee persecution at home in Guatemala and journey north, through Mexico and on to the United States, with the dream of starting a new life. It s a story that happens every day, but until Gregory Nava's groundbreaking El Norte (The North), the personal travails of immigrants crossing the border to America had never been shown in the movies with such urgent humanism. A work of social realism imbued with dreamlike imagery, El Norte is a lovingly rendered, heartbreaking story of hope and survival, which critic Roger Ebert called a Grapes of Wrath for our time.
DVD Features:
New, restored high-definition digital transfer supervised and approved by director Gregory Nava
New audio commentary featuring Nava
In the Service of the Shadows: The Making of El Norte: a new video program featuring interviews with Nava, producer and cowriter Anna Thomas, actors Zaide Silvia Gutiérrez and David Villalpando, and set designer David Wasco
Wall of Silence, a new short documentary by Nava and Barbara Martinez Jitner, concerning the building of the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border
The Journal of Diego Rodriguez Silva, the 1972 award-winning student film by Nava
Gallery of Chipas location-scouting photographs
Theatrical trailer
New and improved English subtitle translation
PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by novelist Héctor Tobar and Roger Ebert's 1983 review of the film
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Magnificent Obsession - Criterion Collection (1954)
dir. Douglas Sirk
Product Decsription:
Reckless playboy Bob Merrick (Rock Hudson, in his breakthrough role) crashes his speedboat, requiring emergency attention from the town s only resuscitator at the very moment that beloved local Dr. Phillips has a heart attack and dies waiting for the life-saving device. Thus begins one of Douglas Sirk's most flamboyant master classes in melodrama, a delirious Technicolor mix of the sudsy and the spiritual in which Bob and the doctor s widow, Helen (Jane Wyman), find themselves inextricably linked to one another amid a series of increasingly wild twists, turns, trials, and tribulations. For this release, Criterion also presents John M. Stahl's 1935 film version of the Lloyd C. Douglas novel, starring Irene Dunne and Robert Taylor.
DVD Features:
New, restored high-definition digital transfer
Audio commentary featuring film scholar Thomas Doherty
Magnificent Obsession (1935, 102 minutes): a new digital transfer of John M. Stahl s complete earlier version of the film
Douglas Sirk: From UFA to Hollywood (1991): a rare 80-minute documentary by German filmmaker Eckhart Schmidt in which Sirk reflects upon his career
Video interviews with filmmakers Allison Anders and Kathryn Bigelow, paying tribute to Sirk
Theatrical trailer
PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by film critic Geoffrey O Brien
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The Children of Huang Shi (2008)
dir. Roger Spottiswoode
Product Decsription:
The Children of Huang Shi is a powerful, inspiring film about a real-life, outsider hero who emerged from Japan's catastrophic invasion of China in 1937. A British journalist, George Hogg (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) sneaks into Nanjing at the height of Japan's destruction of that cosmopolitan city. Rescued from certain death by a suave rebel named Chen Hansheng (Chow Yun-Fat), Hogg goes deep into China's countryside in search of another front to the war. Instead of furthering his career, however, Hogg is talked into taking control of a destitute orphanage occupied by starving, lice-ridden, half-savage boys. A roving nurse, Lee Pearson (Radha Mitchell), keeps Hogg focused on his task, provides him with medical supplies, and ultimately becomes his lover. But the former reporter has to figure many things out on his own, including how to inspire the boys to help fend for themselves.
With the Japanese closing in on the orphanage and the Chinese looking at the boys as likely soldiers, Hogg, Pearson, and Hansheng lead the kids on an extraordinarily strenuous, 700-mile hike to Marco Polo's so-called Silk Road, leading to the Gobi Desert. The second half of The Children of Huang Shi is taken up by this sometimes deadly labor, and director Roger Spottiswoode balances the dreariness of it with knockout images of mountains and eerie, desert vistas. The multi-national cast is the best thing about the film, which avoids canonizing the saintly Hogg by not ignoring his sins of pride (he refers to the kids as "my boys" to the wrong Chinese authority, and pays the price) and jealousy. Chow's jaunty persona adds an essential swagger to this Schindler's List-like story, but it's Mitchell's gritty, soul-weary performance that really grabs one's attention. --Tom Keogh
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George Wallace (Two-Disc Special Edition) (1997)
dir. John Frankenheimer
Product Decsription:
Based on the book by Marshall Frady, this epic bio by John Frankenheimer stars Gary Sinise as one of the century's best candidates for true Aristotelian tragic status. The Aristotelian tragic protagonist is not an entirely bad man, but he has a fatal flaw. Wallace's flaw was not (originally) racism. It was lust for power and status, a lust so all-consuming that it turned Wallace into a fellow traveler with racists, and made of him one of the most destructive and most hated American politicians of his time. Sinise, who seems doomed to be underrated for his acting talents, captures memorably both the corruption and the belated search for redemption. Frankenheimer shows off all his skill with a story line, working through a series of flashbacks from the 1972 assassination attempt and weaving together real and constructed black-and-white footage. The pace does stumble; in the end, the movie is half an hour too long. But you get sucked in by the period feel, the accents as thick as grits, and the many excellent supporting performances. Especially notable are Mare Winningham as Wallace's long-suffering first wife, Clarence Williams as his servant Archie (a somewhat questionable fictionalization by Frankenheimer), and Joe Don Baker as his mentor and predecessor in the governor's mansion, Big Jim Folsom. Frankenheimer, Sinise, and Winningham all won Emmys for their work, and the film won the Golden Globe for Best Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for TV. --Richard Farr
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Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)
dir. Darren Lynn Bousman
Product Decsription:
Begun in 2002 as a Los Angeles stage production by writers Darren Smith and Terrence Zdunich, REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA was designed as a gory, comedic Grand Guignol to appeal more to club goers than fans of musical theater. One fan, aspiring director Darren Lynn Bousman, who has since worked on the SAW franchise, vowed to one day direct a film version of the show. Six years (and five SAW films) later, he has made good on his promise with a bizarre, gory, and unique piece of work that is as sure to entertain as it is to polarize its audience. In the year 2056, following an epidemic of human organ failure, the GeneCo Corporation--owned by the mafia-like Largo family--grows and installs new organs on a massive scale. The business, though, necessitates the employment of repo men to reclaim the organs from clients who miss their payments. Repo man and single father Nathan Wallace (Anthony Head, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER) keeps his job a secret from his terminally ill daughter, Shilo (Alexa Vega), doing it only to pay for her costly medication. Nathan also has a secret history with GeneCo patriarch Rotti Largo (Paul Sorvino)---and their connection is about to become public knowledge on the night of a concert from popular singer--and GeneCo client--Blind Mag (Sarah Brightman).
Compellingly strange, REPO! resembles a comic book-influenced goth dinner theater production set within a dystopian video game. Musically, the score concentrates more on libretto-like sung dialogue than memorable tunes (save Vega's pop-punk "Sixteen" and Brightman's chilling "Chromaggia"), but the cast appears to be having a blast. Skinny Puppy's Nivek Ogre lends some underground cred as the most twisted member of the Largo clan, but Brightman gives the comically bloody proceedings true legitimacy. A surprising casting choice, she's an almost regal presence, and her goosebump-inducing soprano soars stratospherically above this fun cult film in-the-making.
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Saw V (2008)
dir. David Hackl
Product Decsription:
How do you keep a horror franchise going when your villain has been unquestionably and irrevocably killed off? That's a conundrum any number of genre series have tackled--to varying degrees of success--and the problem facing the sadistic Saw films in its latest entry, Saw V. The filmmakers' answer--faithful henchmen--is at first blush a savvy idea, as it allows the mayhem of original bad guy Jigsaw to continue unabated, despite the fact that he was dissected on a morgue slab in the previous film. Saw V extends the premise by having disgraced detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor from the previous two films) don the pig mask to unleash horrific tortures on another group of seemingly unconnected strangers. Scott Patterson (Aliens in America) also returns as Hoffman's Javert, a dogged fellow agent who escapes death in the fourth film and an ugly fate in this entry to continue his pursuit. All the elements that have made the Saw series popular with horror fans--the elaborate killing machines, the trompe l'oeil plotting, and the sociopathic judgments handed down by Jigsaw--are intact in Saw V, which is a positive for its most faithful followers, but a negative for just about everyone else. Saw V covers no new ground, expands no part of the mythology of the series and seems perfectly content to present a lifeless retread of Saw III and IV. It also suffers from the absence of Tobin Bell as Jigsaw, who despite his top billing, is glimpsed only in brief flashbacks. Bell, who could be unsettling even in the stillest moments, gave the series a gravity that kept its least plausible moments in check, and Mandylor, though game, simply cannot provide the same. What's left is dreary and relentlessly downbeat, and to make matters worse, ends on an open note that clearly indicates that a sixth film is in the works, no matter how obvious that the diabolical ingenuity of the original Saw has been worn to the bone by its sequels. Only diehard Saw fans need to sign up for this round of Jigsaw's games. -- Paul Gaita
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Spain... On The Road Again (2008)
dir. Charles Pinsky
I don't really understand why this exists, but I am fascinated by it. It almost seems like a much happier version "No Reservations" mixed with something on the Food Network, I guess? If this was on TV, I'd totally watch it.
Product Decsription:
From the seaside cliffs of Mallorca to the bustling tapas bars and majestic museums of Barcelona, this is the ultimate road trip across Spain. Academy Award®-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow, celebrity chef Mario Batali, celebrated author Mark Bittman (How to Cook Everything), and Spanish actress Claudia Bassols embark on a ten-week tour of a country at the forefront of the culinary and cultural worlds. Each episode finds the four in a new locale, from learning how Cava is made in Catalunya to meeting the famed pigs of Salamanca, as they steadily reveal the undiscovered delights of a country brimming with gastronomic and aesthetic treasures.
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King Frat (1979)
dir. Ken Wiederhorn
My dream of being the first person to film something in fart-o-vision was crushed 30 years ago and I didn't even know it.
Product Decsription:
In terms of debauchery, ANIMAL HOUSE has nothing on this 1979 romp in which the boys of Pi Kappa Delta at Yellowstream University participate in drinking games and an intense farting contest.
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