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15 articles
Blu-ray, DVD Release: Mental
5 April 2013 9:49 AM, PDT
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: June 4, 2013
Price: DVD $19.98, Blu-ray $26.98
Studio: Universal Studios Home Entertainment
Toni Collette (TV’s United States of Tara) has played a number of free-spirited women, and Mental adds another to her filmography.
In the movie, Collette is charismatic hothead Shaz, who’s hired by a local politician (Anthony Lapaglia, Crazy Kind of Love) to watch his five peculiar daughters. Shaz gleefully sets about transforming the girls into proudly unique individuals, but when a mysterious shark hunter (Liev Schreiber, Salt) throws a twist in her plans, the girls must make their own destiny.
Mental is written and directed by P.J. Hogan, who Collette also partnered with on 1994′s Muriel’s Wedding. But Mental wasn’t received as warmly by critics as the earlier film. Critics gave the movie only a 39% approval, according to Rotten Tomatoes, with Time Out New York‘s Sam Adams saying, “Artistic inspiration can be close to madness, »
- Sam
DVD Release: Walk Away Renee
5 April 2013 8:37 AM, PDT
DVD Release Date: April 30, 2013
Price: DVD $24.98
Studio: IFC Films
Filmmaker Jonathan Caouette follows up his 2003 documentary Tarnation with another movie about him and his mentally ill mother, Walk Away Renee.
In the earlier film, Caouette culled together snapshots, Super-8 footage, answering machine messages, video diaries and early short films to document his growing up with a schizophrenic mother. In Walk Away Renee, Caouette films his road trip to move his mother from Texas to New York, which both tightens and tests their bond.
Along the way, they tackle roadblocks including Renee’s mood-stabilizing medications and get glimpses of moments from their past. As Renee fights to maintain a grip on reality, Caouette is faced with deciding between sanity and mortality, familial devotion and personal survival.
Again, Caouette mixes film types, using candid home movies, split-screen verite musical montage, hallucinatory psychedelia and both real and imagined dramas.
Screened in a brief run in theaters, »
- Sam
DVD Release: One Day on Earth
4 April 2013 3:38 PM, PDT
DVD Release Date: April 16, 2013
Price: DVD $29.95
Studio: Docurama/New Video/Cinedigm
One of our planet's denizens makes herself known in One Day on Earth.
The 2012 documentary film One Day on Earth began in September, 2008 as a new media project to create a unique video time capsule, a global on-line community and a feature-length film—all from participant footage captured during the 24-hour period of October 10, 2010. The project has since grown into an annual media event.
From every country of the world, the film offers characters and events that evolve throughout the day, interspersed with expansive topical global montages that explore the progression of life from birth to death to birth again.
Created and directed by Kyle Ruddick and compiled from over 3,000 hours of footage, One Day on Earth ultimately offers viewers an epic glimpse of humanity from more perspectives than ever seen before.
The first global collaborations (10/10/11 and 11/11/11) yielded a »
- Laurence
Blu-ray, DVD Release: Down the Shore
4 April 2013 3:00 PM, PDT
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: April. 9, 2013
Price: DVD $22.98, Blu-ray $24.99
Studio: Anchor Bay
James Gandolfini and Famke Janssen star in Down the Shore.
James Gandolfini (Zero Dark Thirty), Famke Janssen (Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters) and Joe Pope (Tinsel Town) star in the 2011 independent drama-romance film Down the Shore.
Set on the Jersey Shore, the lives of three childhood friends—Bailey (Gandolfini), Wiley (Pope) and Mary (Janssen)—begin to unravel when a deadly secret from their past is revealed. Oh, and Wiley is actually married Mary and the two have a mentally disabled son, Martin (John Magaro), who
The directorial debut of longtime acting and dialect coach Harold Guskin, Down the Shore is filled with the kind of iconography we’ve come to expect from the past couple of decades of cinematic depictions of the Jersey shore, including desolate amusement parks, dark and lonely bars and seedy movie theaters. But as they »
- Laurence
Blu-ray, Digital, DVD Release: Lore
4 April 2013 2:41 PM, PDT
Blu-ray, Digital, VOD & DVD Release Date: May 28, 2013
Price: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $34.95
Studio: Music Box Films
Six children learn the truth about Nazis after the Holocaust in the highly acclaimed indie film Lore.
The movie stars newcomer Saskia Rosendahl as the titular 14-year-old, whose Nazi parents are imprisoned by the Allies at the end of World War II. Alone, Lore leads her siblings across the devastated Germany to get to the safety of their grandmother’s house in the north.
During their journey, they struggle to survive the post-war conditions. When they meet a mysterious young refugee, Lore finds her world shattered by feelings of both hatred and desire as she must trust the one person she has always been taught to hate.
The drama movie, which is based on the 2001 novel by Rachel Seiffert, was directed and co-written by Australian filmmaker Cate Shortland (Somersault).
Lore was nominated for eight Australian Academy »
- Sam
Blu-ray, DVD Release: Breaking Bad Season 5
4 April 2013 1:14 PM, PDT
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: June 4, 2013
Price: DVD $55.99, Blu-ray $65.99
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
The downfall of meth making chemistry teacher Walter White continues in Breaking Bad: The Fifth Season.
In the AMC TV show, Bryan Cranston (Contagion) plays Walt, who, after being diagnosed with cancer, joins one of his former students (Aaron Paul, TV’s Big Love) to turn his chemistry skills into a more lucrative venture.
In season five, Walt’s transformation from well-meaning family man to drug kingpin is almost complete. He starts a new partnership with Paul’s Jesse Pinkman and Mike (Jonathan Banks, Reign Over Me). But Walt’s muderous schemes are threatened by a new development in the investigation led by Walt’s brother-in-law, DEA agent Hank (Dean Norris, Get the Gringo).
Both the Blu-ray and DVD contain these special features:
“Chicks N Guns” scene created for the Blu-ray and DVD release, with Jesse »
- Sam
Blu-ray, DVD Release: Identity Thief
3 April 2013 6:03 AM, PDT
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: June 4, 2013
Price: DVD $29.98, Blu-ray/DVD Combo $34.98
Studio: Universal Studios Home Entertainment
Identity Thief has a comedy trifecter with Seth Gordon (Horrible Bosses) directing Jason Bateman (The Switch) and Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids).
In the movie, Bateman plays Sandy Patterson, a mild-mannered accounts rep whose far from home in Florida. McCarthy plays Diana, who’s living it up on the outskirts of Orlando thanks to Patterson’s stolen ID. With a week to bring down the con artist, Patterson goes to extreme measures to clear his name.
R-rated Identity Thief also stars Jon Favreau (Couples Retreat), Amanda Peet (2012), John Cho (A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas) and Robert Patrick (Cop Land).
Critics didn’t think much of the film, with Miami Herald’s Rene Rodriguez writing: “Identity Thief apparently forgets it was supposed to be a comedy.” Still, the movie’s stars brought in $130 million at the box office. »
- Sam
Blu-ray, DVD Release: Broken City
2 April 2013 3:36 PM, PDT
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: April 30, 2013
Price: DVD $29.98, Blu-ray/DVD Combo $39.99
Studio: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Russell Crowe (l.) and Mark Wahlberg talk it over in Broken City.
Mark Wahlberg (Ted), Russell Crowe (The Next Three Days) and Catherine Zeta-Jones (Rock of Ages) star in the 2013 crime drama-thriller film Broken City.
Seven years after he was forced to retire from the NYPD in disgrace, ex-cop Billy Taggart (Wahlberg) works as a private detective and finds himself in over his head when he agrees to help out the mayor of New York City (Crowe). Hizzoner enlists Taggart to trail his wife Cathleen (Zeta-Jones) to see if she’s cheating. Along the way, Taggart, realizes that the mayor’s motives run deeper than expected and he needs to take the fight to his opponents and navigate his way through a web of lies and deception that puts his freedom–and life–on the line. »
- Laurence
Blu-ray, DVD Release: Spies of Warsaw
2 April 2013 9:49 AM, PDT
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: April 16, 2013
Price: DVD $19.98, Blu-ray $24.98
Studio: BBC Home Entertainment/Warner Home Video
Doctor Who steps into the past for BBC’s miniseries Spies of Warsaw.
Well, not Doctor Who exactly, but actor David Tennant (The Decoy Bride), playing Colonel Jean-Francois Mercier, a decorated hero of the 1914 war and new military attache at the French embassy in Warsaw.
In the years leading up to World War II, Mercier is drawn into a world of abduction, betrayal and intrigue in the diplomatic salons and back alleys of the city. He risks his life working in the shadows, amidst spies and others, and finds himself in a passionate love affair with Anna (Janet Montgomery, Black Swan), a Parisian lawyer for the League of Nations.
Spies of Warsaw premiered on BBC America on April 3 in the cable network’s Dramaville programming block. The 180-minute miniseries is based on the acclaimed novel »
- Sam
DVD Release: The Condemned
1 April 2013 2:56 PM, PDT
DVD Release Date: May 7, 2013
Price: DVD $24.99
Studio: Strand Releasing
Christina Rodlo is looking good--despite a growing sense of terror--in The Condemned.
Entitled “Los Condenados” in its native Puerto Rico, The Condemned is a 2012 horror-mystery film written and directed by Roberto Busó-Garcia.
Beautiful Ana (Christina Rodlo) travels to the remote town of Rosales to transform the abandoned family mansion into a museum detailing her father’s scientific and humanitarian achievements. She discovers that the mysterious caretaker has kept the house in pristine fashion. However, the townspeople – now destitute and helpless — do not welcome her warmly. And neither does the house…
The unrated film received positive notices from critics during its limited run in U.S. theaters in March, 2013. Time Out New York led the way by describing the film as “a posh horror flick” that contained a “lavish dose of gothic style.”
Presented in Spanish with English subtitles, the DVD contains »
- Laurence
Blu-ray, DVD, Digital, VOD Release: Snitch
1 April 2013 2:09 PM, PDT
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: June 11, 2013
Price: DVD $30.98, Blu-ray $39.99
Studio: Summit/Lionsgate
Dwayne Johnson infiltrates a drug cartel to win his son's freedom in Snitch.
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (Faster) gives his acting chops a workout in the action-flavored crime drama-thriller Snitch.
Johnson stars as John Matthews, the owner of a construction company, who learns his son faces 10 tough years in a Federal prison for drug possession. Convinced it was a set-up, he volunteers to become an undercover informant and infiltrate a ruthless cartel headed by the nefarious “El Topo” (Benjamin Bratt, La Mission). With his back against the wall and a web of tricky legalities and growing danger tightening around him, his life totally on the line, Matthews must expose the true criminals before they discover his identity.
Directed and co-written by Ric Roman Waugh (Felon), the film features a killer supporting cast, which includes Barry Pepper (TV’s The Kennedys »
- Laurence
Blu-ray, DVD Release: A Glimpse Inside the Mind Of Charles Swan III
1 April 2013 1:33 PM, PDT
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: May 14, 2013
Price: DVD $19.98, Blu-ray $24.99
Studio: Lionsgate
Charlie Sheen (r.), Jason Schwartzman (l.), and Bill Murray don their boots to take A Glimpse Inside the Mind Of Charles Swan III.
The irrepressible Charlie Sheen (TV’s Two And A Half Men) stars alongside Jason Schwartzman (Moonrise Kingdom), and Bill Murray (Hyde Park on Hudson) in the comedy A Glimpse Inside the Mind Of Charles Swan III.
Set in a stylized Los Angeles, Charles (Sheen) is a successful graphic designer whose fame, money and charm have provided him with a seemingly perfect life. When his true love, a perplexing beauty named Ivana (Katheryn Winnick, Stand Up Guys), suddenly breaks off their relationship, Charles’ life falls apart and he swirls into a downward spiral of doubt, confusion and reflection. With the support of his loyal pals Kirby (Schwartzman) and Saul (Murray) and his sister Izzy (Patricia Arquette, TV’s »
- Laurence
Blu-ray, DVD Release: Reuben, Reuben
1 April 2013 12:48 PM, PDT
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: May 28, 2013
Price: DVD $24.95, Blu-ray $29.95
Studio: Olive Films
Tom Conti stars in Reuben, Reuben.
Tom Conti (The Tempest) received a Best Actor Academy Award nomination for his performance in the 1983 film comedy Reuben, Reuben.
Conti is Gowan McGland, a creatively blocked Scottish poet who ekes out a day-to-day existence by exploiting the generosity of strangers in an affluent New England suburb. His trick is to recite his verse to various arts groups and women’s clubs, bedding other men’s wives, and, hell, even steal tips from waiters at expensive restaurants. It’s not much of a life, but that’s all he has, until he meets and falls for young co-ed Geneva Spofford (Kelly McGillis, The Innkeepers). While Geneva has strong feelings too, she has everything to lose from a relationship with a drunken deadbeat poet who’s unable to hold a job.
Directed by Robert Ellis Miller, »
- Laurence
DVD Release: Absolute Deception
1 April 2013 12:12 PM, PDT
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: June 4, 2013
Price: DVD $22.99
Studio: Sony
Cuba Gooding Jr. (The Hit List) continues his string of starring roles in straight-to-dvd action thriller films with his latest, 2013′s Absolute Deception.
When FBI Agent John Nelson’s (Gooding Jr.) key informant, Miles, is abducted and shot, all that’s left is a severed finger. In order to find a new lead, Nelson travels to New York City to learn what he can from Miles’ widow, Rebecca Scott (Emmanuelle Vaugier, Hysteria). Traveling to Australia’s Gold Coast, the two soon discover Miles may have been part of an elaborate “Ponzi scheme” to bilk investors—including a vengeful billionaire—out of millions of dollars. As more layers of Miles’ secret life are exposed, can the two stay ahead of the mysterious attackers who will stop at nothing to halt their investigation?
Originally entitled Deception, but craftily altered to the name Absolute Deception »
- Laurence
DVD Release: Witness: A World in Conflict Through A Lens
1 April 2013 11:20 AM, PDT
DVD Release Date: May 7, 2013
Price: DVD $19.98
Studio: HBO/Warner
Witness: A World in Conflict Through A Lens
Witness: A World in Conflict Through A Lens is a four-part HBO Documentary Films TV miniseries that examines present-day conflict zones in Mexico, Libya, South Sudan and Brazil, as shown through the lenses of three war photographers.
Some of the world’s most dangerous places are never declared war zones, but cities and regions where drug trafficking, poverty, gang violence, political corruption and ethnic warfare have combined to create the most violent hotspots on Earth. Only a handful of photojournalists remain in these zones major news organizations have left, armed with just their cameras, to document what’s happening and attempt to make sense of the complicated issues that perpetuate in these locations. Witness follows three young combat photographers—Eros Hoagland, who explores the gang-and-drug related violence in both Juarez, Mexico and Rio de Janeiro, »
- Laurence
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