Category Archives: For Your Queue

Find the best new releases and pair those with something from the stacks that you might have missed.

For Your Queue

Uncommon Aliens for Your Queue

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Rejoice! Under the Skin releases this week for home consumption. This hypnotic, low-key SciFi thriller – the latest from filmmaker to watch Jonathan Glazer – follows Scarlett Johansson around Glasgow in a van. Light on dialogue and void of exposition, Under the Skin demands your attention, but it delivers an enigmatic, breathtaking, utterly unique vision of an alien invasion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMUwA7ekIgc

For a decidedly different take, do yourself a favor and look up Attack the Block, first time director Joe Cornish’s SciFi examination of gang violence in a London ‘hood. When something drops from the sky to interrupt a group of teens’ first mugging, the kids turn their pack mentality against the interstellar invaders. Cornish’s perceptive, funny screenplay strikes the right balance between exploring the tensions of urban decay and exploiting the thrills of an alien invasion. His efforts are bolstered by a spot-on cast effortlessly wielding the exuberance, loyalty, and dumb-assedness of youth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3tOFejxPH0

For Your Queue

This Queue Is Mean..and Funny!

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The underappreciated and underseen comedy Bad Words gets a fresh chance at an audience, releasing today on DVD. In his directorial debut, Jason Bateman plays a terrible man but an excellent speller in a squeamishly hilarious film that won’t cater to predictability or common decency. Bateman’s direction – like his film – is lean and mean. Bad Words is not for the sensitive or easily offended, but for the rest of us, it’s a refreshing piece of nastiness.

 

Need more jocularity at the expense of children? Why not dust off that ol’ Yule Tide classic Bad Santa? Madman Terry Zwigoff directs the most irreverent, mean and hilarious holiday film of all time,thanks in large part to flawless performances from Billy Bob Thornton, Bernie Mac, Cloris Leachman, Tony Cox, John Ritter, and of course Brett Kelly as Thurman Murman (“That’s your name?”). This screenplay bends to no one, but the film is an absolute classic of wrong, wrong comedy.

For Your Queue

It’s a Queue Three-fer! We’re Making Up Words!

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It’s a DVD bounty, ladies and gentlemen, with a trio of recommendable titles coming out all at once. If you can’t find something to love this week, well, let’s be honest about it, your taste may be questionable.

First up, the utterly glorious Grand Budapest Hotel. Visually stunning, wickedly clever, a little mournful and, yes, quirky, Wes Anderson’s latest can’t be recommended highly enough.

 

Tired of Frozen? (Aren’t we all?!) Well, rejoice, because the  relentlessly clever and endlessly fun The Lego Movie cometh. A good-hearted energy and clear love of Legos (the world’s awesomest toy) fuel a film that’s guaranteed to entertain and amuse, whether you’re under or over 3 feet tall.

 

If you’re looking for something a little darker, David Gordon Green’s latest, Joe, is here to remind us all that Nicolas Cage can actually act. Forgot, didn’t you? It’s a coming of age film as brimming with poetry and brutality, with an outstanding cast surrounding Cage, who gives the bug-eyes and screaming a break in favor of a nicely nuanced, wounded performance.

For Your Queue

Beautiful Losers for Your Queue

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Available today on DVD and Blu-Ray is the utterly unseen but stingingly lovely portrait of American poverty, The Motel Life. Boasting beautiful performances from Emile Hirsch, Dakota Fanning and, in particular, Stephen Dorff, this story of brothers, hope, and the bad choices that kick survival in the teeth is worth checking out.

Motel Life, at times, feels reminiscent  of Gus Van Zant’s 1989 tale of rambling cons and druggies Drugstore Cowboy. Spun from the haunted existence on the fringes, with dusty small towns and cheap motels, populated by broken people making poor decisions, Drugstore Cowboy is another breathtaking image of the fight to change your direction.

For Your Queue

ScarJo X 2 for the Queue

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Releasing today on DVD is the most imaginative love story in a decade or more, Her. Writer/director Spike Jonze’s unique vision of the near future offers a compelling, tender peek at what may lie in store for a generation weaned off of intimacy by technology. Scarlett Johansson and Joaquin Phoenix are perfection as the lovebirds, but Jonze and his imagination are the real stars.

 

Another unusual take on romance worth checking out is Joseph Gordon Levitt’s writing/directing debut Don Jon. Coincidentally, the film also boasts a magnificent performance from Scarlett Johansson – just one of several great turns in delightful and loaded cast. Check out Tony Danza! JGL skewers a culture that encourages alienation and suppresses intimacy – two obstacles also facing the lovers in Her. It’s a confident, clever, surprising effort from a filmmaker to watch.

For Your Queue

TV Comes Full Circle For Your Queue

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The big screen upgrade to fan favorite teen TV detective Veronica Mars is available today on DVD and Blu-Ray. Kristin Bell ably shoulders this self-aware, witty and fun retread. Fans of the show will be thrilled while the uninitiated are just as likely to enjoy the seedy antics of Neptune, California.

Another great fan favorite to make the leap to the silver screen is Strangers with Candy. Stephen Colbert’s stepping stone program follows the wildly hilarious high school mishaps of “reformed” drug addict/stripper/overbite victim Jerry Blank (the genius Amy Sedaris). It’s such a joy to see the cinematic version take that same twisted after school special approach, but Colbert, Sedaris and company are insanely funny no matter the size of the screen.

For Your Queue

Moving Films, Impeccable Performances For Your Queue

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The wonderful, must-see Chilean import Gloria drops on home audiences today, boasting a beautiful performance by Paulina Garcia in the lead role. A sort of coming-of-middle-age tale, it’s a film of surprising honesty and candor, with every emotional moment heightened by Garcia’s generous performance.

 

Treading somewhat similar territory and yet telling a tale entirely its own is Starting Out in the Evening. Here’s another film boasting an absolutely magnificent central performance, this time from the ever-reliable Frank Langella, who plays a long-retired writer coaxed back into the profession and into life. It’s bittersweet and deeply touching, with Langella hitting every emotional note perfectly.

For Your Queue

Two for Your Queue, If You Can Handle Them

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Israel’s hypnotic fairy tale nightmare Big Bad Wolves releases today. We follow one driven cop, one driven-to-madness father, and one milquetoast teacher accused of the most heinous imagined acts. Not for the squeamish, the film boasts brilliant performances, nimble writing and disturbing bursts of humor. It treads in dark, dark territory, but repeatedly dares you to look away. It’s a bold and brilliantly realized effort.

It’s hard to imagine anyone really aching for a double bill like this, but it’s impossible to watch Big Bad Wolves without thinking of the under-seen and under-appreciated Prisoners.  Hugh Jackman is a revelation as the father bent on finding his missing daughter in a film that bludgeons your senses and leaves you shaken. Impeccable casting, relentless intensity and crafty writing make this a challenging, fascinating film.

For Your Queue

Two New Foreign Gems For Your Queue

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We normally like to use For Your Queue to champion an underseen new release and pair that with an older film you may have missed. This week, however, there are two wonderful films coming out on DVD that you should check out. Both are foreign language titles – one that went sorely underseen, while the other won the Oscar.

The Past is the newest film from Asghar Farhadi, whose magnificent A Separation took home the Oscar for best foreign language film in 2012. Another intimate examination of rocky family bonds, The Past winds through one man’s journey into his estranged family’s crisis. Centered on a volatile and brilliant performance from Berenice Bejo, the film is another exceptional family drama from one of modern cinema’s most promising filmmakers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVPUkGQAVwo

 

Paolo Sorrentino’s Oscar winner The Great Beauty also drops today. A visual wonder, combining satire, silliness and social commentary with a loose narrative and the brilliant performance of veteran Italian actor Toni Servillo, the film lives up to not only its Oscar, but perhaps more impressively, to its “Fellini-esque” label.

For Your Queue

For Your Queue: Two Chords and the Truth

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Out today on DVD and BluRay is the most overlooked film this awards season, Inside Llewyn Davis. Just another Coen Brothers’ masterpiece, the film follows a phenomenally flawed young artist struggling to stay true to his vision and get a break in the Sixties Greenwich Village folk scene. Immersive, funny, expertly crafted and brilliantly acted – particularly by Oscar Isaac in the title role – the film ranks among the very best of 2013. Perhaps more impressively, it also ranks among the very best of the brothers’ careers.

A hot mess of a film that’s still weirdly fascinating, especially for Bob Dylan fans, is the artist’s own meandering fantasy Masked and Anonymous. Dylan co-writes and stars (that second bit is a little more of a sketchy decision), and he’s joined by an enviable cast: John Goodman, Jessica Lange, Jeff Bridges, Penelope Cruz, Bruce Dern, Ed Harris, Angela Bassett and scores of others. Together they piece together themes and characters from Dylan’s countless lyrical tales, creating a nearly coherent storyline about nasty music promoters looking to score a “benefit concert” with the help of a living legend. More beautiful mess than masterpiece, the film is still compelling viewing for Dylan fans.