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

Two Outstanding New Releases for Your Queue

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We can’t bring ourselves to pair up a new release with a similarly wonderful backlist title because two awesome films are released to DVD today: The Iceman and Stories We Tell. You’ll  just have to watch two new ones.

The Iceman showcases the range of genius character actor Michael Shannon. Director Ariel Vromen makes the most of Shannon’s physical presence as well as his ability to oscillate between steely calm and touching vulnerability. It’s a tour de force from one of this generation’s most impressive performers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHZ6dxR2EiQ

Meanwhile, Sarah Polley continues to impress with her skills behind the camera with Stories We Tell. The Canadian writer/director/actor becomes her own documentarian, sharing family secrets in a poignant, fascinating and impeccably crafted look at how all families shape and reshape their own histories.

For Your Queue

For Your Queue: Two 5-Star Options

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We have two five-star options for your queue this week from the brilliant Michael Haneke. The filmmaker won the Oscar for best foreign language film for his breathtaking 2012 effort Amour, available this week on DVD.

The master craftsman tackles the devastating consequences of a stroke in one lifelong relationship. He sidesteps easy emotion, avoids sentimentality, and embraces the individuality of one marriage – therefore unearthing something both universal and intimate. He’s aided immeasurably by flawless turns from both leads, Emmanuelle Riva (Oscar nominated) and Jean-Louis Trintignant.

The White Ribbon (Das weisse Band),  from 2009, is Haneke’s brilliant analysis of evil, full of exquisite beauty and a quiet power that will haunt you.

Set in a small village in Germany in the years just before World War I, the story centers on strange atrocities that begin to affect both person and property.  As the incidents mount and the mystery deepens, the local schoolteacher thinks he can identify the guilty.  He shares his theory with the village pastor, and lines are drawn when the pastor does not agree.

In previous films,  Haneke has mined cruelty both physical (Funny Games) and mental (Cache).  Here, he examines the depth and possible origins of both, and the result is harrowing.

Golden Glode winner and Oscar-nominated for Best Foreign Film, The White Ribbon is that rare work which is not just a film, but an experience. It effectively moves the conversation beyond the film’s setting, and into how the lessons apply to other periods in history and even to present day social, political, and religious movements.

For Your Queue

Triple Feature For Your Queue

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Usually Tuesday is the day we recommend a new DVD release, and pair that with a backlist title you might also enjoy. But since there are three excellent films being released today, we decided to just stick with new releases and highly recommend each of the following.

Mud: Matthew McConaughey continues to impress in writer/director Jeff Nichols’s follow up to the brilliant Take Shelter. McConaughey plays a romantic fugitive befriended by two young boys. It’s a lyrical, bittersweet coming of age tale and an astonishing piece of storytelling.

The Place Beyond the Pines: Derek Cianfrance’s multigenerational story of fathers, sons, and unintended consequences a cast whose performances are even better than their looks. Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper and Eva Mendes are all terrific in this twisty crime thriller.

To the Wonder: Terrence Malick returns to the screen with a cinematic poem to relationships, faith, isolation and love. Abstract, challenging, lyrical and gorgeous, Malick’s latest is a rumination on spiritual fulfillment.

For Your Queue

For Your Queue: Two Looks at the Next Streep

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Writer/director Sally Potter’s poignant semi-autobiography Ginger & Rosa comes out on DVD today. Elle Fanning flawlessly leads a wonderful cast through the crises of adolescence, terrible parenting, and Cuban missiles. Her exceptional talent appears almost effortless, and her vulnerability in this role is heartbreaking. If we’re taking bets on the next Meryl Streep, the smartest money may just be on Fanning.

For more proof, have a look at Somewhere, writer/director Sofia Coppola’s tale of a spoiled movie star (Stephen Dorff) getting a surprise visit from his estranged daughter (Fanning). It is a sparse film, as Coppola returns to the detached style she showcased so beautifully with Lost in Translation. Though you may wonder where it’s headed, stick with it.  Coppola has crafted a beautiful mediation on the value of being needed, and it might one day be remembered as the watershed film of a legendary actress.

 

For Your Queue

Cabin Carnage for Your Queue

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Oh glorious day, everyone – it’s here! Today we can take home and forevermore enjoy Fede Alvarez’s update to the Sam Raimi cult favorite Evil Dead. Groundbreaking amounts of gore accompany this sly reimagining of the beloved cabin in the woods horror. Expect bloody fantastic results.

One of the reasons Evil Dead works as well as it does is that there is already a “cabin horror” shorthand we all know, based on the array of stellar existing films. If you haven’t seen the film’s originator, do so now. If you haven’t seen Drew Goddard’s ingenious Cabin in the Woods, again, go do it right now. We’ll wait.

But for a hilarious, frightening, bloody mess you may have missed, try Dead Snow. Nazi zombies, everybody! Hell yes! Co-writer/director/Scandinavian Tommy Wirkola embraces our prior genre knowledge to mine for comedy without ignoring the scares. Wirkola’s artful imagination generates plenty of startles, and gore by the gallon.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz4KnSI_47c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pn_bwdUeiM

For Your Queue, Slider

For Your Queue: Princesses Gone Wild

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We may be deep into summer vacation, but this week’s DVD releases include a great chance to revisit Spring Break!

With Spring Breakers, gonzo writer/director Harmony Korine gives us his most mainstream film to date.  Okay, it’s no Nicholas Sparks schmaltz-fest, but mainstream compared to Korine’s usual fare (Gummo, Trash Humpers). Four wild teenage girls (including former Disney princesses Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens) head south for Spring Break, and soon meet up with rapper/gangsta “Alien” (a terrifically unhinged James Franco). From there, there is little law-abiding.

Korine has something to say here, and he says it pretty well. Outrageous, courageous, and often very funny, Spring Breakers is worth your time.

When Wednesday Addams decided she was through with family fare, she wasn’t kidding. Christina Ricci followed That Darn Cat – the last of her Disney work – with a slew of riveting, gritty indies including 1998’s Buffalo ’66. She plays Layla, a small town teen willingly abducted by parolee Billy (creepy as ever Vincent Gallo). Another tale of road trips, questionable male influences and the corruption of youth, Buffalo ’66 is a gripping surprise overflowing with fantastic performances. Plus there’s bowling!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiXxJa0Zd1o

For Your Queue

For Your Queue: Compelling takes on Hunger and Poverty

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This week’s DVD releases includes A Place at the Table, a thoughtful, and thought-provoking look at hunger in America. Directors Kristi Jacobson and Lori Silverbush break through the intricacies involved in an issue that should not be as complicated as it is. Sure the approach is idealistic, but the underlying anger serves the film well. Hunger is a problem we don’t have to have in America, and A Place at the Table does a damn good job of showing us why.

For a fictional but no less honest look at American poverty, do yourself a favor and find Frozen River (2008). Nominated for two Oscars – including a nod for Melissa Leo as Best Actress – the film is not just a compelling thriller, but a bracing and unerringly authentic image of American resilience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4LuipQzXqA

For Your Queue

For Your Queue: These Kids are Not All Right

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If box office numbers are accurate, you did not see the film Stoker. You can remedy that today, its DVD release date. Filmmaker Chan-wook Park’s gorgeously filmed English language debut plays like a fractured version of Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt, boasts an excellent cast – Mia Wasikowska, Matthew Goode, Nicole Kidman – and surprises with every scene. It is worth a look.

If you haven’t seen Oldboy, you are probably sick of people telling you you should see it. So…perhaps you should just see it. From 2003, it is Park’s gripping tale of a man held prisoner by a mysterious captor for 15 long years, then suddenly released. His search to find answers reveals haunting twists and unforgettable moments of tension, heartbreak and perversion. Even if Spike Lee’s upcoming remake is worthy, the original Oldboy should not be missed.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQcEeBV0iMQ

For Your Queue, Slider

For Your Queue: Rubber the Wrong Way

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A gleaming gem of overt originality shines among the big budget, high concept releases this week. Filmmaker/madman Quentin Dupieux’s Wrong takes you places in search of existential understanding, and also Dolph Springer’s dog Paul. Columbus-born Jack Plotnick soars with deadpan humor and humanity as the dog lover at the center of this genuinely bizarre but forever fresh and fascinating piece of absurdism.

If Wrong suits your taste, by all means give Dupieux’s 2010 classic Rubber a chance. The film tells the tale of telepathic serial killer Robert, a Goodyear tire. Need we say more? We will, but only enough to let you know that despite the silliness, the film is never stupid, as Dupieux wittily examines the relationship between art and audience.

For Your Queue

Queue Takes its Comedy Like its Coffee: Black with a Disastrous Brunch

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Writer/director Todd Berger’s pitch black comedy of manners It’s a Disaster launches to the online/DVD masses today. In an uncharacteristically empathetic lead turn, David Cross stars as good guy Glen, on a date with Tracy (Julia Stiles) to her BFFs’ monthly couples’ brunch. And then the world ends. The ensemble nails every character and makes the most of Berger’s warped sense of humor and keen sense of etiquette. Cross does not disappoint, taking us places we never expected.

If you find yourself in the mood for another top notch pitch black comedy, try out Serial Mom. Back in 1994, provocateur John Waters unleashed one of his most competent and polished efforts, which zeroed in on trouble in the ‘burbs. A never better Kathleen Turner portrays perfect mom Beverly Sutphin, a woman finally driven to repeated instances of homicide. We’ve all been there, Bev.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uMhrRMJnO0