Tag Archives: DVD picks

Vampires and Ghosts For Your Queue

Oh glorious day, Only Lovers Left Alive is out today for your home viewing pleasure. What a fantastic film this is!

The great Jim Jarmusch reminds us that vampires are, after all, quite grown up and cool. His casting helps. A wonderful Tilda Swinton joins Tom Hiddleston (not too shabby himself) as Eve and Adam, vampires hanging around Detroit. Only Lovers Left Alive is a well thought-out film, a unique twist on the old tale, filled with dry humor, exquisite visuals, and wonderful performances.

And while you’d be wise to chase that with any Jim Jarmusch film, if we have to pick a favorite, it would be 1999’s Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. This hypnotic urban poem on masculinity, violence and wisdom may be Jarmusch’s most likeable picture – as funny and dark as anything Tarantino has ever filmed, but with a surreal, dreamlike quality and a soul full of integrity. It’s a work of art, perhaps Jarmusch’s masterpiece.

Tom Hardy 2-fer For Your Queue

This week offers several excellent options for your queue, but the best among them is Locke. So let’s all get geeked for the upcoming Mad Max: Fury Road  by taking in a couple of flicks from one of this generation’s most explosive, most talented actors, Tom Hardy.

A masterpiece of utter simplicity, Locke tags along on a solo road trip, the film’s entirety showcasing just one actor (the incomparable Hardy), alone in a car, handling three different crises on his mobile while driving toward his destiny. It may sound dull, and it certainly can be challenging, but it may just restore your faith in independent filmmaking.

While you’re queuing up, look for the film that best encapsulates the ferocious talent that is Tom Hardy, Bronson. Director Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive) chose a path of blatant, often absurd theatricality to tell the tale of Britain’s most violent, most expensive inmate. In Hardy’s bruised and bloodied hands, Bronson can be terrifying and endearing inside the same moment. Hardy finds a way to explore the character’s single minded violence, pinpointing the rare moments of true ugliness. The rest is just a guy beating his chest against his own limitations. But when this guy beats his chest, it’s usually with the bloodied stump of what was once a security guard or four.

Uncommon Aliens for Your Queue

 

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

This Queue Is Mean..and Funny!

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.

Beautiful Losers for Your Queue

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.

TV Comes Full Circle For Your Queue

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.

Moving Films, Impeccable Performances For Your Queue

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.

Two New Foreign Gems For Your Queue

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.

A Couple of Major Paynes For Your Queue

Nebraska – Oscar nominee for best film, best director, best actor, best supporting actress, best cinematography and best original screenplay – releases today on DVD. It should probably go without saying that the film deserves a look. Bruce Dern is Woody, a boozy old man who believes he’s won a million dollars and talks his son into driving him to Nebraska to pick up his winnings. It’s a lovely, surprisingly funny voyage and not only one of the best films of the year, but one of the best films in director Alexander Payne’s impressive arsenal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIsgpbSa4_4

After Nebraska, a quick look at one of Payne’s underseen early films is in order. How about Election, a subversive laugh riot about a high school presidential campaign? Oscar nominated for screenplay, the film proved Payne’s agility as a filmmaker and showcased Reese Witherspoon’s spot-on comic ability.

Double Big Mac for Your Queue

The film that may finally win Matthew McConaughey an Oscar is released to DVD today. Dallas Buyers Club is more than a socially relevant biopic. It’s more than a character-driven glimpse at the grinding reality of the dawning AIDS crisis, even. Between McConaughey’s multidimensional performance as AIDS victim and unabashed Texan Ron Woodruff and Jared Leto’s brilliant, Oscar-frontrunning work as Woodruff’s partner in crime, literally and figuratively, the film offers the defining moments in two careers that are just hitting their strides.

For another of McConaughey’s more recent, brilliant but serious performances (as opposed to his recent, brilliant but insane performances), check out Mud. This Huck Finn style adventure is the follow up to the bewilderingly wonderful Take Shelter, both written and directed by the underseen filmmaker of extraordinary talent Jeff Nichols. McConaughey plays the titular Mud, a man-child fugitive who befriends a couple young river rats in search of adventure. The result is a lovely journey of lost innocence and a vanishing American lifestyle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFBC8ohhVUs