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Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy
- Roberto Rossellini is one of the most influential filmmakers
of all time. And it was with his trilogy of films made during
and after World War II—Rome Open City, Paisan, and Germany Year
Zero—that he left his first transformative mark on cinema. With
their stripped-down aesthetic, largely nonprofessional casts,
and unorthodox approaches to storytelling, these intensely
emotional works were international sensations and came to define
the neorealist movement. Shot in battle-ravaged Italy and
Germany, these three films are some of our most lasting, humane
documents of devastated postwar Europe, containing universal
images of both tragedy and hope. DVD Release Date: January
26th, 2010
Jennifer's Body
BD - Jennifer's Body
isn't really a bad film. It just doesn't deliver much for our
time and money. My main complaint is that the serial killings
are antagonistic, rather than, say, counterpoint, to what I take
to be the main theme of the story: "sisters" - their loyalties
and jealousies. Both lead actresses acquit themselves well,
Amanda being the more accomplished actress with much more on her
plate in terms of character development. She also turns out to
be a very good narrator – a task at which many a good actor
(think Leonardo DiCaprio in The Beach) fails miserably. The
cinematography is sometimes seductive but the effects are
generally, perhaps intentionally (how can we know?), ludicrous -
I’m thinking here of Jennifer’s projectile puking scenes, which
are not so disgusting, which might have been OK, as they are
pointless. My feeling is that a poorly done effect doesn't make
it satire. Blu-ray Release date:
December 29th, 2009
Che (parts 1 + 2)
BD - Far from a conventional
biopic, Steven Soderbergh’s film about Che Guevara is a
fascinating exploration of the revolutionary as icon. Daring in
its refusal to make the socialist leader into an easy martyr or
hero, Che paints a vivid, naturalistic portrait of the
man himself (Benicio del Toro, in a stunning,
Cannes-award-winning performance), from his overthrow of the
Batista dictatorship to his 1964 United Nations trip to the end
of his short life. Composed of two parts, the first a
kaleidoscopic view of the Cuban Revolution and the second an
all-action dramatization of Che’s failed campaign in Bolivia,
Che is Soderbergh’s most epic vision.
Blu-ray Release Date: January 19th, 2010
Police Story II
BD - Jackie Chan has
appeared in numerous noteworthy movies, but he seems to be in
top form when playing policemen. In a career filled with high
points, the Police Story and Project A series feature
most of Chan’s greatest stunts and best acting. This is true
even of the recent New Police Story (not connected to the other
Police Story movies), which was a return to form for Chan even
though he is no longer able to push his body to extreme limits.
Chan is limited to playing a goof in the Rush Hour series
and Shanghai Noon/Shanghai Knights, but he emotes mightily and
credibly as a dedicated member of the Royal Hong Kong Police.
Blu-ray Release date: December
12th, 2009
Familia Rodante - Trapero
is that rarest kind of filmmaker, a minimalist with a huge
heart. As this film's extended family travels clear across
Argentina, from Buenos Aires to a remote town on the Brazilian
border, in a motor home built atop a 1956 Chevy Viking pickup,
conversation is sparse and images predominate. What you'll take
away from "Rolling Family" are wordless scenes: a teen couple
snogging in the cramped camper bathroom; a younger kid
daydreaming with his head out the window as overhead wires twist
past, a disgraced wife crying, an old woman sitting in silence,
looking, literally and figuratively, toward the end of the road.
DVD Release Date: March 27th, 2006
Cine Romand -
Ciné-Romand is a mise-en-abyme of previous films of
Francoise Romand. Spectators are invited to discover them at a
happening that mixes fiction and reality as domestic theater.
Voyeurs are not always who we think they are. Romand takes her
inspiration from L’Arroseur arrosé (The Sprinkler Sprinkled),
continuing the role of her great-grandfather from La Ciotat, the
playful kid who bent the hose to stop the water. After filming
the spectators and tenants of the apartments where documentary
scenes were improvised, Romand integrated them fictionally into
excerpts from previous films, reworked in the editing.
Guests/spectators, hosts, angels-guides, actors and technicians
- all become characters in this fiction-documentary where
Alice’s looking glass reflects a mischievous fantasy with the
roles reversed and complementing one another. DVD Release
Date: April 20th, 2009
Appelez-moi Madame -
...Call Me Madame (1986) is nonetheless a provocative and
memorable work. It's a multifaceted portrait of Ovida Delect—a
communist poet and novelist living near Rouen who's published
close to 40 books. Tortured by the Gestapo at 17 as a member of
the French underground and honored by Paul Eluard, she's a
60-year-old who had a sex-change operation at the age of 55.
Formerly known as Jean-Pierre Voidies, she continues to live
with her former wife and 20-year-old son, both of whom reveal
some of the difficulties they've encountered living with such a
singular and egocentric individual. As with Mix-up, Romand
labels this film a “fictional documentary” because its subject
and style relate to Delect's self-image as well as her objective
reality. Indeed Delect controls Call Me Madame just as she
controls her own persona, depriving the film of the free-ranging
imagination of Romand's other two features. But it's still a
subversive and subtle statement that you'll think about for days
afterwards. DVD Release Date: April 20th, 2009
Paris, Texas
BD - New German Cinema
pioneer Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire) brings his keen eye
for landscape to the American Southwest in Paris, Texas, a
profoundly moving character study written by Pulitzer
Prize–winning playwright Sam Shepard. Paris, Texas follows the
mysterious, nearly mute drifter Travis (a magnificent Harry Dean
Stanton, whose face is a landscape all its own) as he tries to
reconnect with his young son, living with his brother (Dean
Stockwell) in Los Angeles, and his missing wife (Nastassja
Kinski). From this simple setup, Wenders and Shepard produce a
powerful statement on codes of masculinity and the myth of the
American family, as well as an exquisite visual exploration of a
vast, crumbling world of canyons and neon.
Blu-ray Release Date: January 26th,
2010
Family Guy Something Something Something
Dark Side BD
- The title of the extended episode on this disc says it all: "Something,
Something, Something Dark Side". I mean, if you find that
funny you are going to love this series, and this episode in
particular. You will also find the 50-minute table read smart
and slyly anti-establishment, since the camera pretty much
maintains a single position covering all 15 personnel at the
table plus another 20 sitting and standing behind them for the
entire segment. Are you laughing? If yes, buy this video and you
will love it. Guaranteed. Blu-ray
Release date: December 22nd, 2009
City of Life and Death
BD - Chuan follows both the
occupiers and the captives with equal sensitivity, for there are
victims and villains on both sides, as the Japanese soldiers,
some barely men, soon find that there is little justice in
power. The film unfolds like a novel with chapters that are each
book-ended by the acceptance of death, the price of living. The
sadness of that structure is only that at each stage there is
the loss of characters you've come to love. Truly a masterpiece
in black and white and pain and bound to be among the foreign
films that will be headed to the Academy Awards.
Blu-ray Release date: October 30th,
2009
Connected
BD - Louis Koo, as a
responsible dad in the making, has this knack for finding a
specific tone, face and posture for his character and sticking
with it until the moment of crisis. He does much the same thing
in his more recent film, Accident, but since that character’s
unraveling takes longer, the technique is more effective. Liu Ye
(City of Life & Death) is scary as hell as the bad guy,
but his character is so one-dimensionally psychopathic we wonder
how he could have risen to his position of authority – on the
other hand, perhaps I’ve just answered my own question.
Blu-ray Release date: January 21st,
2009
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