DVD & Blue Ray Archive for August, 2011

The DVD Wrapup: In a Better World, The Complete Jean Vigo, If …, Orpheus, Cell 211, Phantom Pain, Skateland, Wrecked, True Adolescents …

In a Better World: Blu-ray The winner of the 2011 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film poses several interesting challenges for its characters and audiences. First, it tests the convictions of modern-day Christians to live up to lessons taught by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. Beyond that, by setting “In a Better World”…

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Wilmington on DVDs. Pick of the Week: New. Win Win, Poetry

Win Win (Three Stars) U.S.: Tom McCarthy, 2011 (20th Century Fox) Paul Giamatti has that look — you know the one — that exasperated, slightly fed-up look…That hangdog pall we saw on his gloomy mug when he played the frustrated writer/vinomaniac in Sideways, or that scruffy comic artist in American Splendor: the look of a…

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The DVD Wrapup: The Beaver, Win Win, NEDS, Secret Sunshine, Breath, Road to Nowhere, To Die Like a Man …

The Beaver: Blu-ray Even it were possible to ignore all the baggage Mel Gibson brings with him to any new project, “The Beaver” would still be a movie that defied audiences to like it. There are three things that come immediately to mind when I see the word “beaver,” and none of them is a…

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The DVD Wrapup: Something Borrowed, Jane Eyre, Cul-de-Sac, Queen to Play, Meet Monica Velour, Big Lebowski …

Something Borrowed: Blu-ray There’s a very good chance I misinterpreted the publicity material that preceded the release of “Something Borrowed.”Am I the only one who expected it to be a romantic comedy? Given a cast that includes Kate Hudson, Ginnifer Goodwin, John Krasinski and a way too handsome Colin Egglesfield, Luke Greenfield’s adaptation of Emily…

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Wilmington on DVDs. Pick of the Week: Classic. The Big Lebowski

The Big Lebowski (Four Stars) U.S.: Joel & Ethan Coen, 1998 (Universal) The Big Lebowski, that goofball masterpiece by the Coen Brothers — once damned by some as a shiftless, bone lazy movie that went nowhere slow, now hailed (rightly) as one of the great cult or un-cult movies of the ‘90s, the ‘80s the…

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Wilmington on DVDs. Co-Picks of the Week: New. The Conspirator; Jane Eyre

(Three Stars) U.S.: Robert Redford, 2010, Roadside Attractions The late Sidney Lumet, I think, would have liked Robert Redford‘s new movie, The Conspirator. It’s a film that, like Lumet’s courtroom masterpieces 12 Angry Men and The Verdict, deals dramatically and memorably with the vagaries of the law, and with the wars between justice and injustice,…

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Wilmington on Movies: The Help

  “The Help” (Three Stars) U.S.: Tate Taylor, 2011 Like smooth Kentucky Bourbon or hot cornbread and jambalaya, or like Ray Charles’ great bluesy versions of “Georgia on my Mind” and “America the Beautiful,” The Help is old-fashioned, flavorsome stuff — old-fashioned in many good ways, and a few not-so-good ones. Set in Jackson, Mississippi…

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Wilmington on DVDs. The Rest. Paul, Mars Needs Moms, Despair

Paul (Two and a Half Stars) U. S.: Greg Mottola, 2011  (Universal) Suppose you were to rethink E. T. as a combination 70s road movie and Three Days of the Condor-style paranoid anti-C.I.A. thriller, with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, of Shaun of the Dead as a couple of RV-riding, geek-slacker Brits named Graeme Willy…

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Wilmington on DVDs. Pick of the Week: Classics. Leaving Las Vegas, And Now Miguel

    “Leaving Las Vegas” (Three and a Half Stars) U. S.: Mike Figgis, 1995 (MGM/20th Century Fox) “Try to think that love’s not around. Still, it’s uncomfortably near…” Frank Sinatra, in “Angel Eyes” Nicolas Cage’s Oscar-winning performance in Leaving Las Vegas as an alcoholic Hollywood agent named Ben Sanderson — who loses his last…

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DVD Geek: Hobo With a Shotgun

Of the two possibilities open to the filmmakers who chose to call their movie, Hobo with a Shotgun, the first was to make a realistic revenge thriller of some sort, like the dozens of others that carry the same basic premise, which would be that a villain in a position of power underestimates the resolve of the seemingly insignificant hero. The second possibility, however, is the one the filmmakers actually went with…

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Wilmington on DVDs. Pick of the Week: New. Your Highness; Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff

  “Your Highness” (Two and a Half Stars) U.S.: David Gordon Green, 2011 (Universal) What price silliness? What price prurience? What price sheer knuckleheaded balderdash? Whatever the price, Your Highness – a sword and sorcery movie which sometimes seems geared as lowbrow comedy for frat boy idiots — pays it. This movie was so badly reviewed one…

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The DVD Wrapup: Mars Needs Moms, The Final Destination 3D, The Clinic, Super, Jumping the Broom, Battle of Algiers …

Mars Needs Moms: Blu-ray Judging simply from the negative press generated after the release of “Mars Needs Moms,” you’d have thought Disney was attempting to sell out-of-date produce to needy children, instead of a very decent family picture. The fact it underperformed so badly at the box office prompted more than one pundit to predict…

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Wilmington on DVDs. The Rest. The Perfect Game, The Goods, Coming to America/Trading Places, The Dirty Harry Collection

  “The Perfect Game” (Three Stars) U.S.; William Dear, 2010 (Image)         I admit it. I’m a sucker for inspirational sports movies. And this account of the historic 1957 Little League champions from Monterey, Mexico — a warm-hearted picture directed by William Dear (Harry and the Hendersons), written by the book’s author W. William Winokur,…

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Wilmington on DVDs. Co-Picks of the Week: Box or Multiple Sets. The Godfather/The Godfather 2; Braveheart/Gladiator;

CO-PICK: “The Godfather”/”The Godfather 2″ (Four Stars) U.S.; Francis Coppola, 1972  (Paramount)      Francis Coppola’s restored versions of the first two parts of one of the greatest of gangster sagas and American movies. An offer we can’t refuse, with a cast that can’t be topped: Marlon Brando as Don Corleone, Al Pacino, James Caan and John…

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Wilmington on DVDs. Pick of the Week: Classic and Blu-ray. The Manchurian Candidate

      (Blu-ray) (Four Stars) U.S.; John Frankenheimer, 1962 (MGM/20th Century Fox)            I. Manchuria It’s one of the most brilliantly scary scenes in any American movie. It’s a shocker, a mind-bender. Bewildering. Exhilarating. And, in the end, as icily terrifying as a bullet aimed at your brain. Ka-pow! “Korea, 1952,”…

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The DVD Wrapup: Rio, Exporting Raymond, Outside the Law, Streetwalkin’, The Perfect Game, Stake Land, John Pinette …

Rio: Blu-ray It’s been nearly 70 years since Walt Disney and a team of animators toured South America, looking for new ideas and acting as cultural ambassadors to a continent our State Department felt was ripe for exploitation by Adolph Hitler. Among the souvenirs they brought home was an anthropomorphized cartoon parrot, Jose Carioca, who…

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Wilmington on Movies. Pick of the Week: New. Rio

Rio (Three Stars) U.S.: Carlos Saldanha, 2011 (20th Century Fox) Rio is a big, coruscatingly colorful feature-cartoon love-letter to Rio de Janeiro from Brazilian director/writer Carlos Saldanha (director and co-director on the Ice Age movies) — and it’s full of spectacular computer-cartoon images of Saldanha’s legendar city of samba, aswarm with funny animals acting wild and…

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DVD & Blue Ray

Gary Dretzka on: The DVD Wrapup: Ophelia, Ambition, Werewolf in Girls' Dorm, Byleth, Humble Pie, Good Omens, Yellowstone …More

rohit aggarwal on: The DVD Wrapup: Ophelia, Ambition, Werewolf in Girls' Dorm, Byleth, Humble Pie, Good Omens, Yellowstone …More

https://bestwatches.club/ on: The DVD Wrapup: Diamonds of the Night, School of Life, Red Room, Witch/Hagazussa, Tito & the Birds, Keoma, Andre’s Gospel, Noir

Gary Dretzka on: The DVD Wrapup: Sleep With Anger, Ralph Wrecks Internet, Liz & Blue Bird, Hannah Grace, Unseen, Jupiter's Moon, Legally Blonde, Willard, Bang … More

Gary Dretzka on: The DVD Wrapup: Bumblebee, Ginsburg, Buster, Silent Voice, Nazi Junkies, Prisoner, Golden Vampires, Highway Rat, Terra Formars, No Alternative … More

GDA on: The DVD Wrapup: Bumblebee, Ginsburg, Buster, Silent Voice, Nazi Junkies, Prisoner, Golden Vampires, Highway Rat, Terra Formars, No Alternative … More

Larry K on: The DVD Wrapup: Sleep With Anger, Ralph Wrecks Internet, Liz & Blue Bird, Hannah Grace, Unseen, Jupiter's Moon, Legally Blonde, Willard, Bang … More

Gary Dretzka on: The DVD Wrapup: Shoplifters, Front Runner, Nobody’s Fool, Peppermint Soda, Haunted Hospital, Valentine, Possum, Mermaid, Guilty, Antonio Lopez, 4 Weddings … More

gwehan on: The DVD Wrapup: Shoplifters, Front Runner, Nobody’s Fool, Peppermint Soda, Haunted Hospital, Valentine, Possum, Mermaid, Guilty, Antonio Lopez, 4 Weddings … More

Gary J Dretzka on: The DVD Wrapup: Peppermint, Wild Boys, Un Traductor, Await Instructions, Lizzie, Coby, Afghan Love Story, Elizabeth Harvest, Brutal, Holiday Horror, Sound & Fury … More

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon