Wassup Rockers!
Beautiful days in San Francisco. Not exactly wonderful movie weather, but pretty fantastic life weather.
The movie of the year is here! NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN has finally hit DVD, and it is pretty amazing. You gotta have respect for the Coen brothers, who just keep making their weirdo, quirky renegade movies and have been rewarded in a major way for their most recent. Also big names out this week are DAN IN REAL LIFE, AUGUST RUSH, BEE MOVIE, and HITMAN. There is a small flock of other things to check out, including SLEUTH, OUTLAW, LIL BUSH, THE REAL DIRT ON FARMER JOHN, and more. We also are continuing to add to our Japanese Anime section, adding this week both a title (NEON GENESIS EVANGELION) and a section (under the Blu-Rays and the Film Books in the New Release room). Tell us what you think!
See you at the store,
Ken
............//RELEASE OF THE WEEK//............
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN.
Crime/Drama.
Javier Bardem/Josh Brolin/Tommy Lee Jones.
Directed by Ethan Coen and Joel Coen.
* This is a truly creepy movie filled with fantastic performances, tremendous camera work and a soundtrack that is subtle and sublime. The tale is based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy exploring themes of greed, desire and temptation while staying true to a special code of morals unique to the form of evil which this film exposes. Anton Chigurh (Bardem, in an Academy Award winning performance) is one of the more truly evil characters that you will meet on screen. He has not one but two relatively horrific killing devices, one of being a cattle-killing compressed air gun, and the other a silenced shotgun. Just about everyone who sees this guy sees the beyond soon afterwards. Llewelyn Moss (Brolin) is out antelope hunting one night when he stumbles upon a drug deal gone bad. Dead guys, dead dogs, a huge bunch of heroin and guns strewn all over the place would generally disturb most folks, but not Moss. He calmly assesses the situation, tracks down the “last man standing” and pockets the big cash left behind. The trouble starts for him when he decides to go back and give some water to the one guy who wasn’t fully dead. Although he is tracked by some of the guys looking for the cash at that point, even had he not come back, the transponder hidden in the cash would have brought him into Chigurh’s horrific headlights anyway. A few terrible situations later and the chase is on. Moss is in way over his head, but he never seems to mind, badly misunderstanding the situation. Meanwhile, Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones, in yet another of his amazing performances this year), in the twilight of his Sheriff career, is tracking the situation for the most part from afar, never failing to put the basic facts together, but somewhat disinclined to get too involved in the action. Paced slowly, considering the considerable action, the tension of this film never breaks as it’s stretched out over the two hours of screen time. This film won 4 Oscars, and really could have taken home a few more.
............//NEW TITLES//............
AUGUST RUSH.
Drama/Family.
Freddie Highmore/Keri Russell/Jonathan Rhys-Meyers/Terrance Howard/Robin Williams.
Directed by Kristen Sheridan.
* A lot of bad luck goes into the basic premise that two musicians, Lyla (Russell of WAITRESS fame) and Louis (Rhys-Meyers from THE TUDORS) hook it up in a magical night of romance and love and then unhook it in a mess of confusion, leaving behind a zygote which develops into a blastocyst then into an Embryo, then a fetus, which eventually becomes a baby that gets secretly put up for adoption by Lyla’s dad and is now a super cute little musician himself who longs to find his long lost mom and dad. I heard Robin Williams is great in it, and the other big names are pretty talented too.
BEE MOVIE.
Comedy/Animation/Family.
Jerry Seinfeld/Renee Zellweger/Uma Thurman/Kathy Bates/Alan Arkin/Robert Duvall/William H. Macy/Oprah Winfrey.
Directed by Steve Hickner and Simon Smith.
* Seinfeld’s pet project about Barry B Benson (Seinfeld) who really just wants more out of life than a career making honey. However, once he goes out into the world and discovers that humans eat honey, he decides (very humanly) that the only way to rectify the situation is…a class-action lawsuit. Hey Jerry! Thanks for teaching the kids about the law!
COMEDY CENTRAL ROAST OF FLAVOR FLAV.
Comedy.
Flav/Katt Williams.
Directed by Joel Gallen.
* Seriously, everyone gets hella roasted and then laughs through little squinted eyes.
DAN IN REAL LIFE. ALSO AVAILABLE IN BLU-RAY.
Comedy/Romance.
Steve Carell/Dane Cook/John Mahoney/Juliette Binoche/Emily Blunt.
Directed by Peter Hedges.
* Dan is a soon-to-be-syndicated writer, a “dear Abby” of sorts, who doles out advice in a very helpful sort of manner. He is also a widower with three charming daughters who hasn’t had a date in years, and is losing touch with the passions and vagrancies of love. Unfortunately for Dan, when lightning strikes it turns out to be his brother’s (Dane Cook) new girlfriend (Juliette Binoche) that he becomes smitten with. How to deal with this sensitive situation without giving in to the Threes Company mentality? Watch and learn. All the action happens during a yearly family getaway at the grandparent’s house surrounded by all the family members. There is an awesome group family aerobics session that really made aerobics look fun!
HITMAN.
Action.
Timothy Olyphant/Dougray Scott/Olga Kurylenko.
Directed by Xavier Gens.
* Video game masquerading as a movie. Well loved by lovers of this genre.
NANCY DREW (07).
Comedy/Family.
Emma Roberts/Josh Flitter.
Directed by Andrew Fleming.
* Complicated tale featuring Julia Robert’s niece Emma in the starring role. Or is it Eric’s daughter? I guess Julia is more famous. Maybe Emma will surpass them both someday; it’s hard to tell in this crime mystery tale involving movie stars in Los Angeles.
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN.
See release of the week.
OUTLAW.
Action/Crime.
Sean Bean/Bob Hoskins/Danny Dyer.
Directed by Nick Love.
* Vigilantes in England.
SLEUTH.
Drama/Suspense/Comedy.
Jude Law/Michael Caine.
Directed by Kenneth Branagh.
* Based on the play by Anthony Shaffer, SLEUTH explores a revenge tale played out with mind games on a man who has stolen the wife of another.
SOUTH PARK: IMAGINATIONLAND.
Comedy/Dementia/Animation/Not Family.
Stan/Kyle/Butters/Cartman.
Directed by those funny boys.
* I am just cutting and pasting here from their own description: “The doors of a whole new dimension are thrown open, and the boys of South Park walk right in. It all begins with Cartman’s quest to find a leprechaun and in turn, win a bet with Kyle that would force him to suck Cartman’s balls.”
SUMMER PALACE.
Drama/Foreign (Chinese).
Lei Hao/Xiaodong Guo.
Directed by Ye Lou.
* Banned by the Chinese government for incorporating Tiananmen Square footage without permission, this film caused a stir at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. All in all, it is a story of love and sexuality blossoming against a background of political unrest.
TOMMY TIERNAN: SOMETHING MENTAL.
Comedy.
Tommy Tiernan.
* Stand up comedy.
............//TELEVISION....
LIL BUSH: SEASON ONE.
Animation/TV/Comedy Central.
* Man, this is really funny. Its political commentary (of a sort) looking at the players on the national stage as grammar school kids. They are mean-spirited, obnoxious, messy, snotty and very funny. Wait a minute, its pretty realistic! Cept the funny part. Gosh, they’re so mean to John Kerry.
............//DOCUMENTARY//............
PLAGUES & PLEASURE ON THE SALTON SEA.
Documentary..
Directed by Chris Metzler and Jeff Springer.
* Narrated by John Waters, this doc takes on the bizarre Salton Sea, a decrepit former resort area in Southern California.
THE REAL DIRT ON FARMER JOHN.
Documentary.
Directed by Taggart Siegel.
* The tale of a man with a plan to save his family’s farm in Illinois.
............//FAMILY//............
THE WIGGLES: POP GOES THE WIGGLES
Family.
............//FEATURED NEW ADDITIONS//............
NEON GENESIS EVANGELION.
Animation/Foreign (Japanese).
Directed by Many.
* From IMDB: “When the Angels start attacking the planet Earth in the year 2015, only a handful of 14-year-old EVA pilots are able to stop them. The weak-minded Shinji Ikari suddenly finds himself forced to pilot EVA-01, a giant organic mecha, designed and constructed by NERV, that is the only thing that can stop the Angels”.
............//NEW ADDITIONS//............
AMNESIA: THE JAMES BRIGHTON ENIGMA.
Drama.
Directed by Denis Langois.
* The strange tale of James Brighton, a young American found naked and amnesiac in a parking lot in Montreal in 1998. The only thing he knows is that he’s gay; he can’t remember how he got there, or where he’s from.
ATTRACTIVE MALE SEEKING WOMAN.
Comedy/Foreign (Polish).
* Zany antics of a guy looking for a mate.
GATTACA.
* Another DVD copy, this time “special edition” of the Ethan Hawke/Uma Thurman sci-fi thriller.
LORD LOVE A DUCK.
And love it hard. First DVD of this Roddy McDowell classic.
MR. BASEBALL.
Have you talked baseball with me yet? I probably never mentioned this Tom Selleck movie, did I? Yet, now we have it!
RAVENOUS.
First copy of any sort of this yummy cannibalistic horror tale starring Guy Pearce.
SCOOBY-DOO 2: MONSTERS UNLEASHED.
A couple new DVD’s of this kids fave.
SHE’S HAVING A BABY.
First copy of any sort of this John Hughes film starring the true genius of Kevin Bacon.
TREES LOUNGE.
First DVD of the Steve Buscemi favorite.
****
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