DVD & Blue Ray Archive for December, 2011
Wilmington on Movies: The Adventures of Tintin
The Adventures of Tintin (Three Stars) U.S.: Steven Spielberg, 2011 The Adventures of Tintin — Steven Spielberg‘s second new film in release this season (the other was War Horse, and both of them came out last week) — shows us again to what extent he‘s still a kid at heart and maybe always will…
Read the full article » 2 Comments »Wilmington on DVDs. Co-Pick of the Week: Classic. Tokyo Drifter
Tokyo Drifter (Three and a Half Stars) Japan: Seijun Suzuki, 1966 (Criterion Collection) Off the wall and over the edge from its first scene to its last, Tokyo Drifter is one of the outrageous crime melodramas and outlandish neo-noirs made in the ‘60s for Nikkatsu Studio by super-cult Japanese director Seijun Suzuki. It’s a classic…
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs. The Rest: Final Destination 5; A Good Old-Fashioned Orgy
Final Destination 5 (Also Blu-ray/DVD/ 3D/ UV Combo) (Two Stars) U.S.: Steven Quale, 2011 (Warner Bros.) In Final Destination 5, as in the other Final Destinations, blood is the money shot. The actors, or their characters, are expendable (again), and a guy named Bludworth, or his boss Destiny, is breaking up that old gang of mine…
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs. Co-Pick of the Week: New. Love Crime
Love Crime (Three Stars) France: Alain Corneau, 2010 (MPI Home Video) Movie murder mysteries can sometimes get too tricky and convoluted for their own good, and that’s pretty much what happens in Love Crime — a cool, nifty, well-constructed and very well-acted French film that would have been even better if it didn’t so hard to…
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs. Co-Pick of the Week: New. Brighton Rock (Joffe); Brighton Rock (Boulting)
Brighton Rock 2010 (Three Stars) U.K.: Rowan Joffe, 2010 (IFC) Brighton Rock 1947 (Three and a Half Stars) U.K.: John Boulting, 1947 (Amazon Instant Video) Some books and some cities were born to be filmed. Some men were born to kill. Graham Greene’s novel Brighton Rock is an example of the former: one of the greatest…
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs. Pick of the Week: Classics. A Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol (Blu-ray/DVD Combo) (Two Discs) (Four Stars) U.K.: Brian Desmond Hurst, 1951 (VCI Entertainment) Almost everyone’s favorite nominee for best of all the many film adaptations of Charles Dickens‘ Yuletide evergreen A Christmas Carol, is this 1951 cinematic gem, sometimes called Scrooge, sometimes called A Christmas Carol, directed by the underrated…
Read the full article » 1 Comment »Wilmington on DVDs. Pick of the Week: Box Set. Stieg Larsson’s Dragon Tattoo Trilogy (Millennium Trilogy)
Steig Larsson’s Dragon Tattoo Trilogy (A.K.A. “The Millennium Trilogy”) (Four Discs) (Three and a Half Stars) Also: Blu-ray, Extended Edition Sweden: Niels Arden Oplev & Daniel Alfredson, 2009-2010 (Music Box) Noomi For all of you who want to catch up for the release this week of David Fincher’s American remake of Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With the…
Read the full article » 1 Comment »Wilmington on DVDs. The Rest: Dolphin Tale, Warrior, Straw Dogs (Lurie), Colombiana
Dolphin Tale (Blu-ray/DVD Combo with Digital Combo; also movie only) (Three Discs) (Three Stars) U.S.: Charles Martin Smith, 2011 (Warner Bros.) Winter, the dolphin star of Dolphin Tale — an inspirational if sometimes far-fetched animal movie surprisingly based on fact — is a truly inspirational figure in a sometimes inspirational and often entertaining movie. Caught and crippled in a…
Read the full article »The DVD Wrapup: Margin Call, Dolphin Tale, Midnight in Paris, Glee, Warrior, Burke & Hare, Milestones, Old Fashioned Orgy, Bobby Fischer, Colin Quinn, Hunters, Todd-Margaret, Apollo 18 …
Margin Call Add “Margin Call” to the list of dramatizations and documentaries — “Too Big to Fail” and “Inside Job,” among them – that have attempted to make sense of the 2008 financial crisis and identify those executives who ignored the red flags waved in advance of the collapse. J.C. Chandor’s freshman project is distinguished…
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs: Midnight in Paris (Four Stars)
Midnight in Paris (Also Blu-ray) (Four Stars) U.S.-France; Woody Allen, 2011 (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment) Midnight in Paris (Four Stars) U. S./France: Woody Allen, 2011 Midnight in Paris is a funny valentine to the City of Light, a sweet, jazzy fairy tale about the wonders of Parisian art and artist cliques in the ‘20s…
Read the full article »The DVD Wrapup: Fright Night, Kung Fu Panda 2, Rise of Planet of the Apes, Daddy Longlegs, Meet Me in St. Louis, Branded to Kill, Circumstance …
Fright Night: Blu-ray I must not have been paying attention when the first “Fright Night” was released, way back in 1985, causing a stir among horror buffs looking for something a bit different than the usual teenagers-in-jeopardy stuff. Starring Roddy McDowell, Chris Sarandon, William Ragsdale and Amanda Bearse, Tom Holland’s thriller may have been produced…
Read the full article » 1 Comment »Wilmington on DVDs: The Rest. Kung Fu Panda 2; The Expendables; Buck
Kung Fu Panda 2 (Blu-ray/DVD Combo) (Two or Three Discs) (Two and a Half Stars) U.S.: Jennifer Yuh Nelson, 2011 (DreamWorks Animated) Kung Fu Panda 2 is a cute, likable movie, done with a lot of skill and A-level talent, and with all the visual virtuosity we expect by now from big-budget cartoon…
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs. Pick of the Week: Classic, Blu-ray. West Side Story (Four Stars)
PICK OF THE WEEK West Side Story: 50th Anniversary Edition) (Blu-ray/DVD Combo) (Three Discs) (Four Stars) U.S.: Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins, 1961 (20th Century Fox/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) “The Jets are in gear./Our cylinders are clickin‘./ The sharks’ll steer clear./‘Cause every Puerto Rican‘s/ A lousy chicken!” Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim…
Read the full article » 1 Comment »Wilmington on DVDs. Pick of the Week: New. The Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Three Stars)
The Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Three Stars) U.S.: Rupert Wyatt, 2011 (20th Century Fox) 1. The Rise Rise of the Planet of the Apes, latest chapter in an old franchise, shows us a story we too easily forget, or maybe one that we never really knew… …How it all began, how an imprisoned, persecuted and…
Read the full article »The DVD Wrapup: Hangover II, The Help, Friends With Benefits, Cowboys & Aliens, Mr. Popper’s Penguins, Medea, Underbelly …
The Hangover: Part II: Blu-ray The pressure on producer/director/co-writer Todd Phillips to create an instant sequel to the 2009 blockbuster, “The Hangover,” must have so great that it blinded him to the fact that it generally takes more than a few minutes to write, re-write and re-write again a prized property. That movie was so…
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs. The Rest: The Hangover, Part II; Cowboys and Aliens; Mr. Popper’s Penguins; Kuroneko; Behind the Mask
The Hangover, Part II (Also Blu-ray/DVD/Digital Combo) (Three Discs) (Two Stars) U.S.: Todd Phillips, 2011 (Warner Bros.) I laughed at 2009’s big comedy hit, The Hangover — that tense and raunchy tale of three longtime buddies at a wedding who wake up after a night of incredible but totally forgotten debauchery and have to try…
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs. Pick of the Week: Classic. The Lady Vanishes; Crooks’s Tour; Design for Living (Hecht-Lubitsch or Coward); If I Had a Million .
In The Lady Vanishes, his marvelous 1938 classic of mystery and intrigue set aboard a train full of English and international travellers racing though the Balkans, Alfred Hitchcock pushes the form of the romantic-comedy-thriller to near perfection. It’s one of the most purely entertaining movies he ever made, and it can be watched over and over again with no diminution of pleasure.
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs. Pick of the Week: The Help. The Debt.
“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…
Read the full article »The DVD Wrapup: Our Idiot Brother, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Radioactive Wolves, Another Earth, The Future, The Art of Getting By, Horror Express, Rules of the Game, Smallville …
Our Idiot Brother: Blu-ray It’s interesting how individual members of a family can be a close as peas in a pod or, in this case, as different from each other as snowflakes. For “Our Idiot Brother” to work, viewers must suspend their disbelief long enough to accept the possibility that a guileless flower child (Paul…
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