• An unintentionally creepy romantic comedy P.S. I Love You is saved by a grounded performance from multiple Oscar-winner Hillary Swank. Her perfect relationship is quite literally destroyed by hubby Gerard Butler's untimely death. Luckily, he's left her letters, recordings and more to help her move past his demise, and find a life all her own. The above average cast also includes Lisa Kudrow, Kathy Bates, and Buffy's James Marsters, in a decidedly less vamp-y role.

• On the opposite end of the spectrum is Over Her Dead Body, featuring desperate housewife Eva Longoria-Parker as a bridezilla who dies on her wedding day, only to return from beyond the grave to make sure her fiancée is never happy again. The film squanders the ample comic talents of Paul Rudd as Longoria Parker's living sweetie; but Rudd still manages to eke out some chemistry with his co-star, Lake Bell, as a psychic who can see Longoria Parker's ghost.

• Who would have thought the best cinematic interpretation of Bob Dylan would be played by Cate Blanchett? Director Todd Haynes took this chance when he cast six different actors as the marble-mouthed musician in I'm Not There. Though not every section is a home run, an all-star cast (which also includes Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Richard Gere) and confident direction make this a must-watch.

Continue reading "On DVD This Week - I'm Not There, Serial Mom and More" »

• 27 Dresses' Katherine Heigl and James Marsden have surprising chemistry in their scenes together, which elevates this "always the brides-maid, never the bride" comedy from run-of-the-mill fare. You'll probably be able to guess where the plot is going far before the characters do, but with a good romantic comedy, that's just the way we like it.

• Generally credited with the dissolution of New Line Cinemas, The Golden Compass is an opulent spectacle that outdoes itself on special effects, while neglecting the nuances of Philip Pullman's novel. Despite the kid-friendly props and young cast, it's not the easiest movie to explain to the little ones.

• Speaking of uplifting (or not), The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is Julian Schnabel's adaptation of Jean-Dominique Bauby true-life tale. After suffering a stroke, Bauby learned to communicate with only his left eye. Alternating between claustrophobia and beauty, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is filled with unforgettable images, and is a story that will inspire you long after the movie ends.

• Charlie Wilson's War should have been a no-brainer, with a cast including Tom Hanks, Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Julia Roberts, a script written by Aaron Sorkin, and direction by Mike Nichols. The true story of Charlie Wilson, who helped raise money for the Afghan Civil War (and may have single-handedly caused our current situation in the Middle East), the film is not as good as it could have been, but for fans of any of the above, it's worth a look.

Continue reading "On DVD This Week: Charlie Wilson's War, The Orphanage, and The Savages " »

• Despite its Best Picture nomination backlash, Juno is far more charming and sweet-natured than you remember it being. Forget the precious language and "so last year" soundtrack, and you'll find that at its heart, Juno is a excellently written, directed, and acted fairy tale about growing up.

• How do you market a movie that's about a guy who tries to pass off a sex doll as his girlfriend? Not well, apparently, as Lars and the Real Girl, a critically acclaimed, box office failure can attest. Get past the  doll, and you'll find Ryan Gosling as a damaged young man who manages to bring his whole town together when they play into his fantasy, rather than destroy it.

Continue reading "New on DVD - Juno, Lars and the Real Girl, and Lawrence of Arabia" »

• A special two-disc set of There Will Be Blood, Paul Thomas Anderson's recent masterpiece about the nightmarish side of the American Dream arrives on shelves this week. Besides an Oscar-winning performance by Daniel Day-Lewis, it comes with more extras than you can shake a milkshake at.

• Lost among the myriad of spoof movies of the past few years, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story attempts to do what none of the others successfully accomplished -- be funny. A send up of Walk the Line, it manages to skewer every decade of American music, from bluegrass, up on through disco, and beyond.

Continue reading "There Will Be Blood, Walk Hard, Lions for Lambs: Striking Oil on DVD This Week" »

• The third volume of The Bette Davis Collection is out this week. The collection includes 1942's In This Our Life. Davis plays the baddie who steals her sister's husband and manipulates her uncle through booze and feminine wiles. Wrote John Huston, the director of the film: "There is something elemental about Bette -- a demon within her which threatens to break out and eat everybody, beginning with their ears."

• Speaking of ear-eating, The Cook (2008) is a soft-core, cannibalistic romp (with lesbian fantasy sequences) about sorority sisters who spend all their time playing sex games and, possibly, eating each other unintentionally.

• Also released this week is the "extreme unrated remastered special edition" of Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004). Just in time for the release of the sequel, in which -- in a slight turn of events -- Harold and Kumar escape from Guantanamo Bay.

Here's a roundup of new DVD releases this week:

• In 1967, Bonnie and Clyde kick-started '70s style -- in American film as well as in fashion. It's also one of the most romantic films ever made about the love between an insatiable woman and an impotent man.

• David Lynch's Lost Highway (2006) was the first in the director's current phase of twisted-up and implosive narratives about identity and obsession. Revisit some of the original reviews here.

• Carrie Fisher once remarked, "My friends and I used to make bets about how long a celebrity marriage would last after the woman had won an Oscar and the man hadn't." Reese Witherspoon won an Oscar for her portrayal of June Carter in 2005's Walk the Line, while Ryan Phillippe -- nominated for his role in Crash -- went home empty-handed. The Witherspoon-Phillippe divorce was announced in eight months later.

• And finally, nothing to do with Easter: The East German film The Rabbit is Me (1965) about a woman who seduces the judge who sentenced her brother, was banned for 25 years for its "anti-socialist" and sardonic attacks on the country's judicial system. All the other banned East German films of 1965 became known as the "Rabbit Films."

• Among the new releases, Atonement comes out on DVD this week. The gorgeous sets and costumes from that film inspired fashion copycats and even a couple of Oscar nominations. "The art direction is so scrumptious, you want to eat it on toast," was the veddy British compliment published in a review in London's Metrolife.

• The Ice Storm that American suburban classic, is being released in a new Criterion edition DVD with a newly-mixed soundtrack so home viewers can better surround themselves with those tragic tones of cool weather isolation and impending doom.

• Also out from Criterion this week is Mafioso, a movie that weaves dizzily between bleak drama and black comedy. The New York section is shot as if imagined or hallucinated.

• Dan Duryea, one of the best character actors of the '40s and '50s, was often cast as the blond "heavy." He was almost always as creepy as he was charismatic. Catch him in this anniversary edition DVD of  Pride of the Yankees. 

• Al Pacino stars in And Justice for All, a black comedy satirizing politics and justice in the disillusioned Carter era. As Vincent Canby said in the New York Times when the film was released in 1979, it "pretends to be about the shortcomings in our judicial system, but it's really an extended introduction in how to lose control, have a nervous breakdown, go crazy, commit suicide and perform other antisocial acts." That pretty much describes every Pacino performance since Scarface.

• Another classic crazy, Gene Tierney, is being highlighted in a featurette accompanying the DVD release of Black Widow, one of the first (and only) noirs released in Cinemascope. Also being released by Fox Noir (although mysteriously so, since it's not a noir in the slightest) is Otto Preminger's strange love triangle Daisy Kenyon starring Dana Andrews, Henry Fonda and Joan Crawford. Fonda's Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is his major characteristic and also part of his loose cannon charm.

Continue reading "Our Highly-strung Americans DVD Roundup: And Justice for All, No Country for Old Men " »

This week's DVD offerings abound with highs and lows. From the timeless offerings of Wilder and Lumet, to the why-Dustin-Hoffman-why Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, here's our roundup:

• The classic '60s workplace drama-comedy-romance The Apartment is being released in a new special edition as part of The Billy Wilder Collection. The Wilder film was a point-of-reference, revealed director Andrew Bernstein in a recent interview in our Mad Men blog. Other films in the set are two of Wilder's lesser known, but equally definitive films: The Fortune Cookie and Kiss Me, Stupid.

• For more contemporary fare, there's the medical thriller Awake, Oscar-nominated Into the Wild, and the above mentioned kiddie flick, Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium (the last of which received a rare F from Entertainment Weekly).

Continue reading "This Week on DVD: The Billy Wilder Collection, Into the Wild and 12 Angry Men" »