****new release list no.180

THIS FRIDAY, AUGUST 22nd: come see THE BIG LEBOWSKI at our backyard screening room. You can quaff up some White Russians and watch as the Dude abides. Doors open at 8:45, film starts at 9:00pm. Next week we are taking part in the Bernal Heights Outdoor Cinema festival. We hope to see a bunch of you out at one of their awesome events.

Anyone catching any Olympics? Something about the massive time difference and the knowledge of what already happened makes it hard for me to desire to make time to watch any of the competitions. The time difference, that is, and the lack of a working television. Ah, yes.

I have been so on the verge of buying a nice fat hi-definition television set, but somehow, haven’t convinced myself to pull the trigger on anything specific yet. Do you have one? Do you have a link I could just click and buy one or two of these? Send it to me! Ayyy. I can file documents with administrative acumen, but buying electronics? Not my forte. Still, it is time to buy one. And then buy the Blu-ray player that has also been eluding me. Just today I was looking at one on Amazon and the price was right ($315) but the lack of the proper television that could actually reproduce the images that are imbedded on those little discs just made it seem stupid to purchase. Like melting the butter before growing the artichokes-or some such yummy steamed vegetable that tastes good with a little melted butter maybe with a splash of squeezed lemon in there. Uh, yeah.

I just came back from Seattle, which is a really lovely city. They say it is grey and rainy but it always gets super sunny and hot when I’m there, so I can’t verify it. We spent the week wandering around the city, admiring all the cute little named apartment buildings (The Karma House, Holly Manor), enjoying the city parks with their funky fountains and wading pools and Astroturf playing fields, which by the way, are quite slick these days. We checked out the library there, which is a masterpiece of angles and exposed metal beams in wild geographic patterns housing a massive but well-organized collection and reading rooms, piano playing rooms, temperature controlled rooms, and crazy art installations along the walls of the escalators that take you up up up.

We even went up the Space Needle (41-second ride) then back down for $40 (worth every penny). We checked out Pike’s Place market. Damn, why can’t Fisherman’s Wharf be like that? Fresh fish, jams, fruit, veggies, custom leather belts, beads, art, knick-knacks, flowers in abundance, pastries both high and low-brow, and people, moving through, both tourists and locals alike. A seriously nice place that I highly recommend.

Unfortunately, we did not end up going to the yummy restaurants we fantasized about hitting (Salumi, Tilth, Impromptu). Such is life with children, eh? I really loved Seattle, but it just gave me more perspective on what a fantastic city we live in. I love vacating, but I think even more I love to come home. There’s no place like it.

Lots of good movies this week, highlighted by RECOUNT the painful reenactment of the 2000 Presidential election. I hope history treats that episode very harshly.

In the meantime, as our Presidential election approaches, I can only think:

President Obama: Say it Aloud.

Peace and love and stuff,

Ken

............//NEW TITLES//............

AN AMERICAN CRIME.
Crime/Drama.
Catherine Keener/James Franco/Ellen Page.
Directed by Tommy O’Haver.
* Based on a true story (the WORST CRIME to ever GET COMMITTED in INDIANA) this film tracks a very very seriously not nice woman pushed to the breaking point (by her like, 47 children) who badly damages a couple of nice children left in her care by their carnie parents. Featuring the soon to be overexposed Ellen Page.

CAMP ROCK.
Comedy/Family/Musical.
Nick Jonas/Joe Jonas/Kevin Jonas.
Directed by Matthew Diamond.
* How many Jonas brothers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? None. None more black.

HANNAH MONTANA CONCERT MOVIE: 3D.
Uh….
Miley Cyrus.
Directed by Bruce Hendricks.
* Is there anything to say here? We watched it in the store today and it was very entertaining. And you get the awesome 3D glasses too!

IMMORTAL (2005).
Sci-Fi/Adventure.
Linda Hardy/Thomas Kretschmann/Charlotte Rampling.
Directed by Enki Bilal.
* Super trippy sounding flick about some chick wandering NY with blue hair and crazy genetics and maybe blue tears and a floating pyramid in the sky with perhaps some Egyptian gods hanging round? Oh yeah, and its 2095.

LIFE BEFORE HER EYES.
Thriller.
Uma Thurman/Evan Rachel Wood.
Directed by Vadim Perelman.
* Uma plays a woman whose life is kinda falling apart twenty years after surviving a school shooting that claimed the life of her young friend, played by Wood.

MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY.
Comedy/Romance.
Frances McDormand/Amy Adams/Shirley Henderson.
Directed by Bharat Nalluri.
* Very joyfully performed tale of a governess in London (McDormand) who becomes caught up in the whirlwind life of an American star (Adams).

NEVER BACK DOWN.
Action/Drama/Martial Art.
Sean Faris/Amber Heard.
Directed by Jeff Wadlow.
* I dunno, FIGHT CLUB meets THE KARATE KID?

PROM NIGHT (2007).
Horror.
Brittany Snow /Dana Davis.
Directed by Nelson McCormick.
* Let’s face it, it’s generally a bad night, whether you are being dumped by your chappy, throwing up on the side of the road, dirtying your rented party outfit or being pursued by a psychopathic killer.

RECOUNT.
Drama.
Kevin Spacey/Laura Dern/Tom Wilkinson/Denis Leary/John Hurt.
Directed by Jay Roach.
* And just keep recounting until a Democrat wins! Star studded cast reenacting those sad sad days and weeks after the 2000 election when Florida proved that it was unable to count or recount.

SMALL BACK ROOM.
Drama/Criterion/Foreign (English).
David Farrar/Kathleen Byron/Jack Hawkins.
Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.
* 1950’s film about a bitter bomb expert in WWII who is also a drunk.

STREET KINGS.
Suspense/Crime.
Keanu Reaves/Forest Whitaker/Chris Evans/Hugh Laurie.
Directed by David Ayer.
* Familiar tale of violence and corruption in the LAPD, starring Keanu as a cop implicated in the death of another officer of the law.

TWENTY FOUR EYES
Drama/Criterion/Foreign (Japanese).
Hideko Takamine/Yumeji Tsukioka.
Directed by Keisuke Kinoshita.
* This is the story of a young schoolteacher, struggling to educate her students during WWII with the knowledge in her heart that many will die in the war.

WIZARD OF GORE
Horror/Gnarly.
Crispin Glover/Bijour Phillips.
Directed by Jeremy Kasten.
* Remake of the 1970 classic about a magician whose on-stage tricks may not actually be illusions afterall. He may really be sawing those nice young women in two! Starring super-freak Glover as the evil magician Montag the Magnificent.

............//DOCUMENTARY//............

PRIMO LEVI’S JOURNEY.
Documentary.
Chris Cooper.
Directed by Davide Ferrareo.
* Doc looking at the life and travels of Primo Levi the Italian born author and survivor of the holocaust .

............//TELEVISION//............

BURN NOTICE: SEASON ONE .
Television/Comedy/Drama/Thriller.
Jeffrey Donovan/Bruce Campbell/Gabrielle Anwar/Sharon Gless.
Created by Matt Nix.
* So, your basic burn notice (for a spy, that is) means you’re a persona non gratis to the government; you have no money, no identity, no support, no job history, no credit, no 501 button fly blue-jeans (just seeing if you are still paying attention) (do those still exist?) and everyone you used to know is trying to kill you.

DEXTER: COMPLETE SECOND SEASON.
Television/Susense.
Michael C. Hall/Julie Benz.
* Season two of the story of th dice-em slice-em serial killer with an ethical heart and skilled hands.

GOSSIP GIRL: SEASON ONE .
Television/Drama/Gossip.
Blake Lively/Leighton Meester/Chace Crawford/Taylor Momsen.
* Snotty rich kids in some elite NY school talking shit about one another.

HOUSE: SEASON 4.
Television/Drama.
Hugh Laurie/Lisa Edelstein.
* Fourth season about Dr. House and his weird team of strange-case solving doctors.

TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES.
Television/Action/Drama/Fantasy.
Lena Headey/Thomas Dekker/Summer Glau.
* This series is set after the second TERMINATOR film but before the third and focuses on the Connors attempts to prevent the creation of the Skynet program that will eventually destroy humankind.

TRANSFORMERS ANIMATED SEASON ONE.

............//BLU-RAY NEW ADDITIONS//............

JAY AND SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK.

............//NEW ADDITIONS//............

WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE.
* First DVD copy of this 1996 Todd Solondz (PALINDROMES, HAPPINESS) flick about the painful realities of life in Junior High.

****